Alison Ritchie, BT's chief broadband officer, has decided to leave BT at the end of September. Alison and her husband Steve plan to take a year off and to do some travelling around the world.

Appointed chief broadband officer in November 2002, Alison’s role was to put broadband at the heart of BT and help the company achieve its ambitious targets for both broadband availability and take-up.

The UK now has the best ADSL broadband availability in the G8 with more than 99.6 per cent of UK homes and businesses connected to ADSL enabled exchanges. This figure was 66 per cent when Alison took on her role.

The UK has also seen an explosion in broadband adoption. There are more than five million ADSL customers in the UK – compared with 500,000 in late 2002 - and Alison’s team helped BT achieve this milestone a full year ahead of schedule. They also helped improve the systems and processes for all broadband service providers thereby helping to stimulate the overall market.

Alison was previously chief executive of BT Openworld where she delivered the narrowband business into profit six months earlier than scheduled. She also led the teams that delivered BT’s financial restructuring in 2001 - including the de-merger of 02 and the £5.9bn rights issue – as restructuring project director.