Claire Gillies (pictured), currently President of Bell Canada’s Wireless and Consumer Divisions, will be new CEO from 1 April
Marc Allera has decided to step down as CEO of BT Group’s Consumer division and will leave on 31 March next year. Claire Gillies will become CEO-Designate and a member of its Executive Committee on 10 December.
Gillies will become CEO of Consumer on 1 April. She has more than 23 years’ experience in telecoms, having worked at Bell Canada since 2000 in various senior roles. Most recently, she was President of Bell Canada’s Wireless and Consumer Divisions where she ran a business generating CA$14bn (about £8 billion) in revenues with more than 8,000 staff and more than 20 million subscribers.
Previously, Gillies ran The Source, Canada’s largest consumer electronics retailer and has a BSC and MBA.
Allera has been with the group for nine years. Much of the commentary around his departure is “job done”. Group CEO Allison Kirkby said, “Marc has been an outstanding leader of BT’s Consumer unit, contributing significantly to the company’s growth, and to multiple key initiatives such as leading the team through the integration of EE into BT Group, the creation of the BT Sport joint venture with Warner Bros Discovery, and launching New EE as our lead consumer brand.
It’s hard to exaggerate how bad the integration of EE/BT systems was for consumers who we were forced to become EE customers for their broadband and access their broadband accounts via the EE portal. I was told by BT that the problems I’d experienced for months were an issue nationwide. And then there’s the inexplicable decision to stop issuing VAT invoices once an EE customer.
The joint venture BT Sport with Warner Bros Discovery was making the best of a bad job, offloading a turkey landed on the company by former CEO Gavin Patterson who lost the company a frightening amount of money with the venture into sports broadcasting.
Here’s what the man Allera himself had to say about his exit in the press release: “I’m proud to have led an incredible team through enormous change in the market, and the evolution of the company for the past nine years. In that time we have transformed every aspect of our operations to deliver great service to our 25m customers across the UK, with everything they need for our fast-moving world of technology.
“We’ve created a fantastic platform for growth, and I wish Claire the very best for the future. While I’m looking forward to the next chapter, I’ll be leaving with great memories of my time at BT and EE, and want to thank every single one of my colleagues who has contributed to our success together.”
BT Consumer plans to sell fridges and other stuff to non-BT customers from next year.