Ofcom Appoint Temporary CEO as Hunt for Replacement Continues

The board of the United Kingdom’s communications regulator, Ofcom, has so far failed to find a replacement for their current CEO, Ed Richards, in time for his departure next month. So in the meantime they’ve appointed an acting Chief Executive, Steve Unger, to hold the position until the right candidate can be found.

Ed Richards confirmed his not entirely unexpected plan to step down from the role in October 2014 (here), which will see him depart by the end of December 2014. Richards is arguably somewhat of an institution at Ofcom, having first joined the board in March 2003 before working his way up the chain of command.

Since then the alien-sounding Zygos Partnership has been busy hunting for his replacement, which will be a public appointment made by the Ofcom Board that involves “an independent assessor” and is subject to approval by the Government’s Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Sajid Javid MP. But so far they’ve come up empty.

Instead the board has agreed that the current Director of Ofcom’s Strategy, International, Technology and Economist Group, Steve Unger, “will step up as acting Chief Executive at the end of the year“. In other words, a decision to appoint a permanent CEO will have to wait until next year.