51 Degrees (51°), the telecommunications infrastructure business for London, has refocused its management team to take into account its renewed emphasis on customer service and circuit delivery. The refocus includes the creation of a new post of Strategy and Regulation Director, two internal promotions as well as a new Sales and Marketing Director to accommodate Paul Girvin’s departure.
Sophie Graham will be joining 51° in October 2003 as Director of Strategy and Regulation. She will move across from 51°’ parent, the utility giant EDF Energy, where she has been leading a strategy and market intelligence team in retail energy and telecom services. Sophie has extensive experience in carrier relations and wholesale telecom markets having worked for ntl for 7 years where she was responsible for establishing the wholesale switched voice product portfolio as well as overall interconnect strategy. Sophie will be responsible for developing 51°’s business strategy, leading carrier relations activities and establishing a regulatory and compliance function.
Neil Smith has been promoted to Head of Engineering with overall responsibility for pre-sales, design, construction and service delivery. Another internal promotion has been awarded to Richard Welch who will control the Network Operation Centre, operations and maintenance field force and service contracts. Craig Lucas, Engineering and Operations Director comments: “This streamlined management structure tightens our focus on service delivery, service assurance and upgrade of the underlying network and will make it easier for me to scale the organisation over the coming months”.
Ty Smith will be replacing Paul Girvin as Sales and Marketing Director. Commenting on his new role, Ty said: “As we continue to upgrade our network to become the world’s first 40GigE platform, sales and marketing strategy will be firmly focused on securing volume business in the wholesale marketplace”. Ty will maintain responsibility for cell site sales. Paul Girvin has announced his intention to leave the company at the end of the year to pursue other business interests in the telecommunications sector. Until then, Paul has been appointed as Customer Services Director and will be developing a holistic customer service structure to encompass the entire customer experience.
