Rural ISP TrueSpeed, which is backed by an investment of £75m from Aviva Investors and is deploying a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across South West England (mostly Somerset), has today appointed Paul Burridge as their new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to help accelerate their plans and future growth.
The provider, which currently aims to reach 75,000 premises by the end of 2021 and has an aspiration for covering 200,000 by 2025 (i.e. demand-led deployment where 30% of a community needs to sign-up), has spent the past few years gradually working its way across rural parts of Somerset. But they’ll need to go much further and faster in order to achieve their ambitions.
As such Paul joins Truespeed from Bath-based tech business MyLife Digital, where as CFO he was part of the senior leadership team driving the firm’s growth strategy. Before that he spent a year as Finance Director at West Country Vending where he worked closely with the owner and Board on the successful sale of the business.
Paul began his career in finance over 25 years ago, training as a chartered accountant with EY. Since then he has also held senior finance roles in a wide range of businesses, including software and services provider Tribal Group PLC, communications agency SHIFT Active Media, and commercial law firm DAC Beachcroft.
Evan Wienburg, CEO of Truespeed, said:
“Paul’s impressive track record in helping to run high-growth businesses providing robust financial and operational support mark him out as the ideal CFO. His experience and expertise will be a huge asset as we accelerate our growth and connect more households and businesses in the South West to our award-winning full fibre broadband service.”
End.
They need to stay ahead of Gigaclear and the next phase of CDS.
Don’t be surprised if truespeed get squeezed out of the market. With Gigaclear, BT and Virgin operating in the area and Jurassic to the south there is not much wiggle room for expansion.
The demand led model is typically a very slow method of building.
But good luck to them as the more altnets challenging the big guys the better.
Dont be surprised if Truespeed get bought out by one of the big service providers.