Liv Garfield is to step down as CEO of Openreach during Spring next year to become CEO of Severn Trent, the FTSE 100 water company. Garfield has overseen BT's £2.5bn roll-out of fibre broadband and she played a key part in BT's commercial fibre investment in her previous role as BT's Group Strategy Director.
Garfield said: "It is a huge wrench to leave Openreach but I feel the time is now right to take on a fresh challenge. Our commercial programme to bring fibre broadband to two thirds of UK premises is almost complete, while BT's public sector broadband partnerships are making good progress."
Gavin Patterson, CEO, BT Group said: "Liv has made an enormous contribution to BT over the past 12 years and she'll be greatly missed. With her leadership we have taken the company's commercial fibre roll-out from conception through to delivery. We wish Liv every success in her new role."
?Since Garfield assumed the Openreach position in April 2011 the availability of fibre over BT's network has risen from around 4m premises to more than 17m. Meanwhile, the number of customers adopting fibre has increased steadily from just over 100k in April 2011 to more than 2m subscribers today.
Garfield's successor will be announced by BT in due course.