BSkyB has announced several new senior management appointments, including chief operating officer, managing director of its customer group, and group director for communications and brand marketing.
Brian Sullivan, currently Sky’s director of product strategy and management, is appointed to the role of managing director, customer group with responsibility for leading the company’s marketing, product development and customer service teams.
Sullivan, who played a major part in Sky’s multi-product strategy with the launch of Sky+, multiroom, Sky HD and Sky Broadband, takes up the role following the announcement that Jon Florsheim, Sky’s chief marketing officer and managing director, customer group, is leaving the company after 12 years to become chief executive of Homeserve GB and an executive director of Homeserve plc.
Matthew Anderson, Sky’s group director for communications, assumes the new role of group director for communications and brand marketing, taking on responsibility for brand marketing in addition to leadership of the company’s publicity, corporate communications, public affairs, internal communications and corporate responsibility activities.
Sky says that by bringing together all of these functions, it aims to ensure a strongly integrated approach to brand communications across all audiences.
Didier Lebrat will be join Sky in December in the newly-created role of chief technology officer from Vodafone Italy, where he currently holds the same title.
The creation of the new role brings together the leadership of Sky’s Information Technology, Customer Technology, Network Infrastructure and Broadcast Platform teams.
Sky says that its aim in providing single leadership is to ensure that its technology operations are closely matched with its changing needs as it grows its pay-TV business and expands into the broadband and telephony markets.
James Murdoch, chief executive, said: “The coming together of entertainment and communications is transforming the scale of the opportunities before Sky. These appointments ensure that Sky is well positioned as a challenger in the combined industry of pay TV, broadband and telephony and underscore the high calibre of Sky’s executive team.
“I am pleased to be able to make three appointments from our existing team and to welcome such an accomplished executive as Didier to Sky. As one of the most experienced executives in the European telecoms industry, he is ideally placed to lead Sky’s technology operations at this exciting time for our business.”
BSkyB recently announced that its total revenues grew to £1,071 million in the third quarter of the year, an 11% increase compared to the three months ended 30 September 2005.
It Q3 results also revealed that 74,000 customers have been connected to its broadband service since it was launched in July (see BSkyB Revenues Grow 11%).
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