Incoming Everything Everywhere chief shakes up team

New Everything Everywhere chief Olaf Swantee took charge on Thursday, radically shaking up the management team in the process.

In a statement, Everything Everywhere — the merged operations of mobile operators Orange UK and T-Mobile UK — said the new management team would comprise 10 C-level executives. Before Thursday, there were four C-level executives and 22 vice presidents.

Six of the former top executives have resigned, four of whom came from the Orange side of the business. Swantee, who takes over leadership of Everything Everywhere from former Orange UK chief Tom Alexander, also comes from the Orange side of the merger.

One of the highest-profile resignations was that of chief financial officer Richard Moat, who had been tipped as a potential leader for the merged company. Moat had been chief financial officer and deputy chief executive. Before Everything Everywhere began operations in April last year, Moat had been chief executive of T-Mobile UK for around a year. Before that, he was with Orange Romania, and was in total a 17-year veteran of Orange's international operations.

"The leadership team I'm announcing today draws from the existing talent within Everything Everywhere as well as bringing in some new faces with broad-ranging, international expertise," Swantee, late of parent company France Telecom, said in the statement. "The structure of the team is function-oriented with clear accountability so we can accelerate the execution of our key plans and priorities."

The new team includes Pippa Dunn as chief marketing officer for consumer, Gerry McQuade as chief marketing officer for non-consumer mobile, Ralf Brandmeuer as chief performance officer, Marc Allera as chief sales officer, Jackie O'Leary as chief customer officer, Steven Day as chief of brand and communications, Francoise Clemes as chief of HR, Stephen Harris as chief of staff, Neal Milsom as chief financial officer and Fotis Karonis as acting chief technology officer.

"We would like to congratulate Olaf on his new appointment and wish him and his new management team all the best of success for the future," Deutsche Telekom chief financial officer Tim Höttges and France Telecom deputy chief financial officer Gervais Pellissier said in the statement. "At the same time we would also like to thank Richard Moat for the role that he played as CFO and deputy CEO for Everything Everywhere."

The Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom executives praised Moat for being "instrumental in ensuring a rapid integration between Orange and T-Mobile, as well as reaching synergy savings ahead of time".

Apart from Moat, others to resign upon Swantee's coronation included chief commercial officer Andrew Ralston, HR vice president Ian Pitcher, strategy and regulation vice president Nicolas Ott, trading vice president Neil Macgeorge and chief change officer Linda Kennedy. Macgeorge and Kennedy will stay on as consultant through the rest of the year to help the transition.

Of the 10 high-level executives left in the team, Karonis is the only one to come from the T-Mobile side of the business, and even he is only an acting C-level executive until someone takes over as permanent CTO.

Although those who have resigned mostly have a history with Orange UK, the fact that almost no-one on the new management team comes from T-Mobile UK has led some analysts to question whether the merger really was one between equals, according to reports.