BT Group has confirmed the appointment of current Worldpay co-chief executive Philip Jansen as its new chief executive. He will join the company and be appointed to the board as an executive director on 1 January 2019, and following a handover period will take over from Gavin Patterson as chief executive on 1 February.
He will be stepping down as co-chief executive at Worldpay at the end of the year. Jansen led Worldpay through its flotation in 2015 and its merger with Vantiv this year to create a global e-commerce company.
Among holding previous senior roles at varied companies like Brakes Group, Sodexo Group and MyTravel PLC, he was managing director of Telewest Communications PLC’s consumer division, which later merged with NTL, with those two then becoming part of what is now Virgin Media.
While the consumer division of BT is doing relatively well, its business services division isn't. Overall recent poor group results led to BT making the change. There was also a continuing massive black hole in the BT pension fund, the financial scandal that hit BT Global Services in Italy, continuing poor financial performance in Global Services and other enterprise businesses, and 7,000 net redundancies being announced earlier this year.
Jan du Plessis, chairman of BT Group, said: “Philip is a proven leader with outstanding experience in managing large complex businesses. His strong leadership has inspired his teams, successfully transformed businesses across multiple industries and created significant value for shareholders.
“His most recent success at Worldpay, a technology-led business, means he is well suited to build on the solid foundations that are in place at BT.”
Jansen said: “BT is a special company with a wonderful history and a very exciting future. It has built a leading position across fixed and mobile networks, creating an opportunity to deliver increasing benefits for our customers, the UK economy and our shareholders.
“In a competitive market we will need to be absolutely focused on our customers’ needs and pursue the right technology investments to help grow the business.”
Patterson will continue to serve as chief executive until 31 January 2019, and will present the company's Q3 results on that day before handing over to Jansen on 1 February.
Jansen will be paid £1.1m per annum. The salary will be fixed at this level for five years. There will also be a cash allowance in lieu of pension of 15% of salary and other benefits in line with BT's remuneration policy.
There will also be an annual bonus of up to 240% of salary subject to performance. One third of the annual bonus paid will be deferred into BT shares for a further three years with no additional performance conditions.
