LONDON, UK, Sept. 13, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- COLT Telecom Group plc (COLT), a leading pan-European provider of business communications solutions, today announced a number of senior management appointments and organisational changes designed to strengthen the senior management team and position the company for its next phase of growth.
These changes affect the customer facing operations and are designed to support and drive revenue growth.
-- Sales and Marketing will be integrated into one function under
single leadership, providing a clear focus on driving revenue
growth
-- COLT will now be organised into four geographic areas. These areas
will be the company's three largest individual country markets (ie
the UK, France and Germany) and Strategic Markets comprising a
further ten European markets. This new structure will provide
greater focus on COLT's largest markets and give increased
support to the fast growing smaller countries.
-- In addition, a new function -- Innovation & Products -- will be
tasked with regaining innovation leadership and bringing market
leading new products to our customers
The following senior management appointments have been made:
-- Detlef Spang joins as Managing Director Sales & Marketing from
Equant where he was Senior Vice President EMEA
-- Tim Wort joins as Managing Director UK from Vignette where he was
General Manager EMEA
-- Richard Blaustein joins as Managing Director France from BT Global
Services where he was Vice President Global Transformation
-- Wolfgang Essig will now lead Germany as Managing Director
-- Lakh Jemmett becomes Managing Director Strategic Markets
-- Paul David becomes Managing Director Innovation & Products
Recognising the importance of these new roles, all will now report directly to Jean-Yves Charlier and will be members of the COLT Senior Management Team.
Jean-Yves Charlier, Chief Executive Officer, said: "These changes are designed to provide the company with a world class leadership team and strongly position COLT for long term revenue growth."
Notes to editors:
The COLT senior management team now comprises:
Jean-Yves Charlier -- Chief Executive Officer Tony Bates -- Chief Administrative Officer Richard Blaustein -- Managing Director France Paul David -- Managing Director Innovation & Products Wolfgang Essig -- Managing Director Germany Lakh Jemmett -- Managing Director Strategic Markets Detlef Spang -- Managing Director Sales & Marketing Ken Starkey -- Chief Operations Officer Tim Wort -- Managing Director UK Chris Woodman -- Managing Director Human Resources Marina Wyatt -- Chief Financial Officer
High resolution images of the COLT senior management team are available for the media to download free of charge at www.vismedia.co.uk
Biographies:
Detlef Spang -- Managing Director Sales & Marketing
Detlef Spang was Senior Vice President EMEA at Equant, heading up the Sales and Marketing organisation across the region. In this role he was responsible for positioning Equant as the leading data and IP services provider overseeing the delivery of the full Equant portfolio of value-added service offerings to customers throughout EMEA. Prior to this he was responsible for Marketing and Sales within Western Europe after the merger of Equant and Global One. He has broad telecoms experience having worked for Global One in the US and Deutsche Telekom, Sprint and Cable & Wireless in Germany. Aged 48 he is German.
Tim Wort -- Managing Director UK
Tim Wort was General Manager EMEA for Vignette Corporation, the global enterprise software and solutions company. He began his career at IBM and over a period of 17 years held a number of senior management positions becoming Vice President Worldwide Sales, WebSphere, based in New York. Then followed a period at Siebel Systems, latterly as UK Managing Director, before he joined Vignette in 2001 where he was responsible for strategy and business performance in EMEA. Aged 41 he is British.
Richard Blaustein -- Managing Director France
Richard Blaustein was Vice President Global Transformation for BT Global Services where he led the global business and cultural transformation programme. Before joining BT, he spent six years at Equant as head of its North American operations, a key member of the management team responsible for building and positioning the company as one of the leading data and IP services providers in the U.S. and Canada. Before that he was managing vice president for Professional Services at Gartner Group, having previously held senior management positions at Cap Gemini Sogeti, Becton Dickinson & Company, and Price Waterhouse in Paris where he started his career. Aged 53 he holds dual citizenship of France and the United States.
Biographies of the other members of the COLT senior management team are available at http://www.colt.net/about_colt/our_people
About COLT:
COLT Telecom Group plc is a leading pan-European provider of business communications services. COLT owns an integrated 20,000 kilometre network that directly connects 32 major cities in 13 countries. COLT supplies customers across the full spectrum of finance, industry, service and government sectors with unrivalled end-to-end network security, reliability and service.
This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange