Rural UK Broadband ISP Gigaclear Appoints New Financial Boss

Abingdon-based rural ISP and full fibre network builder Gigaclear has today announced that they’ve finally appointed a new Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Hugo Eales, which comes after the departure of both their former CEO, Gareth Williams, and CFO, Ian Wade, earlier in 2024 (here).

The network operator has so far built a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 560,000 rural premises (RFS) across various parts of England (inc. 130,000 customers) and they hold an ambition to cover “over” 1 million premises by 2027. But the operator recently announced some job cuts and appeared to slow their roll-out (here).

Suffice to say that having a good CFO is very important for any business in this climate and Gigaclear states that Hugo Eales, who has long worked in the ISP and technology sectors, has previously held various CFO roles and responsibilities at world leading firms (e.g. DXC Technology, Colt Technologies, BT Global Services etc.).

Gigaclear’s Chief Executive Officer, Nathan Rundle, said:

“I am delighted that someone of Hugo’s calibre and with his significant industry experience has joined Gigaclear, and I look forward to working closely with him as we look to cement our position as the best rural provider in the country.

Hugo has 20 years of experience operating at board level in a variety of executive roles for large, complex, global organisations both in the UK and overseas, and his insight and tenacity will be invaluable to us as we push on with our mission to generate economic and social value for the communities and customers we serve.”

The operator’s current interim CFO, Paul Hooper-Keeley, will remain at Gigaclear in the short term to assist in the transition and close the financial year.