Ex-BBC Journalist Now TalkTalk’s Director of Corporate Affairs

Broadband ISP TalkTalk UK has hired the former BBC journalist and campaign strategist, Lucy Thomas, to be its new Director of Corporate Affairs. Lucy joins from the communications agency, Edelman, where she was Senior Director, leading campaigns and advising major brands like Coca Cola on reputation, PR and political campaigning etc.

Thomas is also a former BBC journalist, serving as a Producer on Newsnight and Radio 4 News Programmes. At one point she was also based in the BBC Brussels bureau covering the EU institutions for four years and has experience leading major national political campaigns, including co-founding and leading communications for a referendum campaign in 2016.

The provider, which recently sold their independent full fibre broadband network (FibreNation) to Cityfibre for £200m (here), hopes that Lucy will help to get their “challenger voice” heard at “every decision-making table, in Westminster and in the media.”

Tristia Harrison, CEO of TalkTalk, said:

“I’m thrilled that TalkTalk is gaining Lucy’s media and campaigning expertise. She joins an excellent communications and public affairs team at a really important time for the business, as the Government and Ofcom consider major changes to the industry and the debate about full fibre networks is at the top of the political agenda.”

The ISP said they want to see the “maximum number of homes and businesses benefiting from full fibre“, but they added that it was “crucial that’s done in a way that protects competition and ensures full fibre is affordable for everyone.” We suspect that TalkTalk won’t want their existing customers on copper based service to be hit with steeper than usual price rises either and they’d of course like FTTP to be cheaper, especially from Openreach.

On the other hand TalkTalk now sits in quite an awkward position, given that they will be taking services from both Openreach and Cityfibre (both bitter rivals with different viewpoints on the industry).