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BT Group UK Reportedly Hunting for New CEO to Replace Jansen

Sunday, Mar 26th, 2023 (7:58 am) - Score 18,864
bt ceo philip jansen 2019 uk

The current CEO of broadband and telecoms giant BT Group (inc. Openreach, Plusnet and EE), Philip Jansen (56), could be on his way out – sooner than expected. Industry sources have reportedly told a Sunday newspaper that BT Group have already begun hunting for somebody to replace Jansen, who has held the position since 2018.

Since taking on the reins, Jansen has doubled-down on the rollout of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology across the UK, continued a major cost-cutting drive (e.g. job losses and restructuring), reduced the operator’s focus on the Pay TV market, faced growing speculation of a takeover by Altice UK (Patrick Drahi), prepared a major re-branding of the operator’s various divisions and battled with unions in a pay dispute that caused a series of national strikes – the operator’s first since 1987.

NOTE: BT are investing £15bn for Openreach to build FTTP broadband to 25 million UK premises by December 2026.

However, despite making some perhaps difficult but necessary changes to BT’s strategy, Jansen has sometimes had a tendency to land himself in hot water (e.g. giving himself a 32% pay increase during a pay dispute with staff). But the most recent example was a controversial interview with the FT that caused “significant concern” at Ofcom (here) after he appeared to suggest that, once the rollout of full fibre had completed, there was “only going to be one national network” and it would all “end in tears” for some altnets. Jansen has since said that his comments were taken out of context.

The reality is that it’s now 2023 and the BT Group will need to have one eye on both their future strategy (after the completion of their full fibre network) and Ofcom’s next strategic market review. Despite this, we had expected that Jansen might stay in the role for a little longer, particularly since neither of those future issues are imminent.

According to the Mail on Sunday, BT may already be planning for a successor, which is said to be “an open secret” in the City. Executive head-hunters are reportedly already creating a shortlist of potential candidates and are said to have conducted “searches in the market” for executives interested in the top job. Alternatively, they could look to promote in-house, such as by appointing the current head of BT’s Consumer division, Marc Allera.

The reality is that we probably won’t hear any more about this (if true), at least not in the short-term, until after BT has gone through its major re-branding phase this spring and resolved the current question marks over Openreach’s full fibre pricing / discount scheme (Equinox 2) with Ofcom.

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Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
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Comments
28 Responses
  1. Avatar photo aw says:

    do what they always, pay him off with zillions then get someone in that knows nothing about telecoms

    1. Avatar photo Mark says:

      Are you suggesting food bank Phil knows about telecoms?

      He’s running the company into the ground, just look at the share price since he took over. Someone elsewhere on here also said he sold a large volume of his own shares (whilst revoking staff shares) just before the price tumbled!

      Long overdue that he’s booted, and the board should advise that his last payrise (while everyone else struggled) was an accelerated leaving package.

      The before/after tax numbers were cleverly hidden behind a lot of waffle from food bank phil during the strikes, looks as if even the union missed the numbers!

      His complete disregard for all staff and their quality of life is disgusting.

  2. Avatar photo At says:

    Take Marc AllEEra with you

  3. Avatar photo Ged says:

    I’ve heard Cityfibre’s Greg Mesch will be available soon.

    1. Avatar photo Andrew G says:

      Pah! Not a chance for Greg. Dame Sharon White on the other hand has almost completed her mission at John Lewis, and I’m sure she’ll bring a wealth of useful experience, as well as pleasing the Nominations Committee.

      Shareholders, well, they may be less pleased, but when did a board or a nomination committee ever care about (eeuuuk!) shareholders?

  4. Avatar photo dontcare says:

    Marc Allera and Philip Jansen can go to abroad to enjoy their retirement for all I care.

    1. Avatar photo Reality Bytes says:

      That would be a good move on their part for sure.

      Monaco if they have the cash.

  5. Avatar photo Ex Employee says:

    Is there a reason there no reports or investigation into EE selling BT broadband and higher prices to customers who regrade , justified by an ARP (Average revenue Pricing structure)
    So if you lay that much already and there’s cheaper prices for new customers they Mark up the product and try and justify it as the add benefits not relevant to the customer to the new proce plan

  6. Avatar photo Ex Employee (continued) says:

    Spelling corrected and additional info

    Is there a reason there no reports or investigation into EE selling BT broadband at higher prices to customers who regrade / renew with BT in EE Stores , justified by an ARP (Average revenue Pricing structure)
    That is if you pay that much already and there’s cheaper prices for new customers they Mark up the product and try and justify it as they add benefits not relevant to the customer to the new price plan.

    I did challenge my bosses and Marc Allera on this but was told they didn’t agree with it either , but it is what it is its a system error but it is what it is and it’s how BT sell it.

    What’s worse is they then break ofcom general conditions by package selling to hide the cost increase on the customers broadband.
    This is often justifed as they claim they have to to meet thier sales targets and get commission or bonus.

    For example

    Customer comes in paying
    £53.99 for BT broadband
    £79 for a mobile
    Total £132.99

    Then are told the total they pay now, a new lower total and asked if they are happy, well its less so the often elderly customers say yes and thanks.

    For Example
    £63.99 for the new BT broadband
    £43 for the phone
    Given as an option of £106.99 for a new phone and new broadband.

    But there’s no breakdown often given as required by ofcom regs, or if there is they are told the discount on the EE plan is conditional to the new BT plan again in breach of ofcom general conditions , they are told the conditional discount makes it cheaper over all and bang there signed up for up to in some cases 63.99 for the new broadband that a new customer may get for 34.99.

    They justify it in EE by telling the customer about the added benefits they now have,
    for example;
    faster broadband they don’t need ,
    discount on BT mobile that they don’t use , double data on bt mobile that they don’t use ,
    a new price promise and no annual increase but paying nearly £30 more than they should already!

    More than new customers would pay for the pleasure.

    All whilst the TV in store flashes up the lower prices, but customers just don’t notice this in most cases.

    But no one cares when staff report discontent ar ripping people off , no one listens amd nothing changes.

    I once had a team member come to me as he had been covering another Store and was told to sell an old man faster broadband in this way, the old man didn’t even use broadband, when my advisor challenged a Regional manager instore at the time of sale he said what you talking about he’s getting faster broadband!!

    Madness

    Report it and your called negative and worked out of the business or leave as you are fed up trying to change things

    1. Avatar photo T says:

      I can see why you’re an ex employee.

    2. Avatar photo Fastman says:

      Yep probably an personal axe to.grind no doubt

    3. Avatar photo Keith Obvious says:

      Thank you for speaking up about this

    4. Avatar photo Andrew G says:

      Unethical practices seem to be the norm in telecoms, far more so than other regulated sectors. TT, VM, VF, all the big companies are at it. Partly that’s because customers are passive and accepting, and seem afraid of the smaller ISPs who do put customers first. But partly it is down to years of shockingly poor, inattentive regulation. Another reason why Dame Sharon has to be in with a very solid chance – she’ll fit in a treat, and she’ll tick all the boxes.

    5. Avatar photo Rip off britain says:

      We are charging customers over 80 quid a month for broadband that’s not even full fibre, and don’t get me started about renewing elderly customers at 70 quid a month with next to no broadband usage. We are no better than the scammers that call every day, we are just ripping people off legally!

  7. Avatar photo Carl Conrad says:

    Leaving BT was the best thing I did. I will never use the same provider for broadband and mobile again owing to their high prices and tendency to lock you in with differing contract end dates making it difficult to move. Vodafone and O2 are considerably cheaper

  8. Avatar photo Ad47uk says:

    I have said for years that BT and openreach should be spilt, not the pretend split we have at the moment.

    1. Avatar photo Fastman says:

      100% not a pretend split — there a specif chinese walls between BT & openreach — another person wtih an axe to grind because he think hes been hard done by

    2. Avatar photo GNewton says:

      @Fastman: Let’s stick to the facts here.

      The network assets are owned by BT plc. And Openreach Limited is wholly owned by BT plc’s parent holding company, BT Group plc.

      So Ad47uk has a valid concern here.

    3. Avatar photo Reality Byted says:

      Believe you’re a fan of businesses staying in UK ownership. A full split and they’d both be snapped up pretty rapidly. The poison pills that keep potential purchasers away wouldn’t be there.

      Given where we are now I don’t see much point in separating them unless the wholesale arm of Enterprise go with Openreach leaving just the retail arms as happened in Japan.

    4. Avatar photo Andrew G says:

      When privatised, government held a golden share in BT to prevent takeover but the Blair government cancelled that in 1997. More recently, the business minister used powers under the National Security & Investments Act to deter stake-building by a foreign national who evidently wasn’t held to be a suitable owner, but there’s no poison pill as such.

      But the heart of politicians isn’t in defending domestic ownership – it has been reported that 87% of UK water and energy businesses are owned by foreign companies or governments, and rail operators are probably not that far behind. Interests linked to Russia were even allowed to start building altnet assets until it was noticed they all just happened to be strangely focused on towns associated with east coast air bases as reported by this site. The majority of UK airports are foreign owned including Heathrow and Gatwick, I don’t think a single sea port is domestically owned.

      You’d therefore have to assume that the purpose of both Labour and Conservative governments is to deter and penalise UK asset owners, and that they’ve been exceptionally successful. BT, you are next.

    5. Avatar photo Reality Bytes says:

      Unsure if they’ve deterred and penalised. Think it’s just a combination of having a very open market and being nowhere near as wealthy and powerful as we’d like to think we are.

      We rely heavily on foreign investment as we do little of our own. The banking sector can’t cream commission off investment in people, plant and machinery.

    6. Avatar photo Andrew G says:

      Well, UK plc does plenty of investing overseas too, and foreign investment in the UK is within a very generous spit of UK investment overseas (£2trn vs £1.8trn).

      A particular problem we have is that we have very onerous rules on pension fund investments, which is why the FTSE 100 is pretty thin when you wander away from the top 30, and why you see British infrastructure assets bought by Macquarie of Australia, Ontario Teachers Pension Fund, various Californian public pension funds and the like, but rarely see UK pension funds investing in infrastructure assets here or anywhere. British pension funds are expected to keep their money in safe investments like government bonds where wretched idiots like Truss & Kwarteng can then massively damage them (although looking back that thief Brown didn’t do pension savers and good turns).

      The biggest reason that we’re getting out of all manufacturing and doing “stuff” is because it can’t be done profitably as we have high land costs, high business rates, and crucially the highest business energy prices in the world, usually 24th out of 24 IEA member countries. But those are just another list of things every MP should be hung for.

    7. Avatar photo Reality Bytes says:

      Is that actual UK money that’s being invested abroad or foreign money under UK management, Andrew?

    8. Avatar photo Andrew G says:

      It’s investment abroad by UK companies, or UK investment by foreign companies and done almost on a cashflow basis. There’s a long explanation over at ONS on how FDI data is collected, but as near as makes no difference it’s not foreign money under UK management or UK money under foreign management. If you want to get into the esoterica of the multinational nature of shareholders of large companies then you’ll need to go and ask ONS!

    9. Avatar photo Fastman says:

      G newton

      really typical response from a man who never happy about anything

      i know you dont like facts anyway

      Fact is Openreach choose what to do with their money and deal with all service provider in the same way

      whether you and AD47Uk choose to accept it or not

  9. Avatar photo anonymous says:

    Needs the boot. I fear it WILL be Sharon White. In my opinion, she was useless at Ofcom, going well on destroying John Lewis; a brand that was successful when she went in and is the perfect candidate to “transform” BT. Also known in John Lewis as a “cutter and shutter”.

    Store was just modernised and redecorated – about to open fresh in Peterborough. She then axed it. Big store, been there for decades. All sorts of guff about pandemic etc. but I don’t buy it. People like myself saw a sudden and huge decline in customer service that you would expect, wrong orders sent or broken goods through insufficient packaging and never knowingly undersold also trashed by her/management team which in branding world was huge and known about.

    1. Avatar photo Ex Telecom Engineer says:

      Going by BT’s track record of ineptitude, Liz Truss will be the next one in the hotseat.

  10. Avatar photo It's not me, it's you says:

    Psychopath. Just like the rest of them at that level. We are just playthings to them.

Comments are closed

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