Virgin Media O2 makes new appointments to executive committee

Virgin Media O2 has made appointments to its executive committee following the departure of COO Jeff Dodds and exec Rob Evans. 

Ulrik Bengtsson

Dodds steps down from his role in the summer and will be replaced by William Hill International CEO, Ulrik Bengtsson. He will be responsible for improving customer experience and implementing key consumer digital initiatives across all of Virgin Media O2’s customer areas. This includes overseeing customer service, install and field technicians, offline sales and more than 300 retail stores spread across the country.

Bengtsson joined William Hill as Chief Digital Officer in 2018 and was appointed CEO within a year. He oversaw the sale of William Hill to Caesars Entertainment for £2.9 billion, representing a doubling of the business’ valuation since 2019, and then led the separation of the US business and the sale of the European business to 888.

Evans, managing director of fixed network expansion departs the company due to health reasons, with Julie Agnew taking over the role.

Agnew had previously covered this area on an interim basis since the start of the year. She will be primarily focused on delivering fibre rollout on behalf of nexfibre, a joint venture established last year by Liberty Global, Telefonica and InfraVia Capital Partners.

Julie Agnew

Agnew was most recently CEO at Egg, which was launched in 2022 by Liberty Global Ventures, the investment arm of Liberty Global, to offer consumers and businesses a range of de-carbonising technology solutions. Prior to that, she spent 20 years at Virgin Media, latterly as the executive director of construction & delivery, extending the reach of the company’s broadband network through its Project Lightning programme.

The appointment marks the company’s effort to dial up its customer-first focus, accelerates its digital transformation strategy and doubles down on key growth initiatives to drive long-term commercial momentum.

It also sees Gareth Turpin now lead a single consumer commercial division focused on fixed, mobile and convergence growth and performance, as well as, Kay Schwabedal head the division for digital transformation, product and value creation.

Lutz Schüler, CEO of Virgin Media O2, said: “As Virgin Media O2 approaches two years as a joint business I’m extremely proud of the progress that we have made, and both Jeff and Rob have played a major part in this success, both before and after the merger. As we now look ahead to the next chapter, putting customers right at the heart of our decision making, accelerating our digital transformation activity and ramping up our network build engine, it’s fantastic to have Ulrik and Julie as part of our leadership team.

“Ulrik brings extensive operational and digital knowledge to the table with a record of delivering transformational changes that create a better customer experience and service. Julie has been part of the Virgin Media and Liberty Global families for many years and knows the network and build landscape inside out.