…as business arm hires boss
BT has recruited Afshin Mohebbi to replace Kathleen Flaherty as director of marketing in its business communications division.
Mohebbi was most recently vice-president of business marketing for Pacific Bell in California. He joins at a time when BT’s business division is facing a stronger threat from a reinvigorated Cable & Wireless Communications, which is planning to spend 50m on ads before March.
The BT business division accounts for more than 1.5bn of BT’s total income and Mohebbi will control a marketing budget of over 100m. The division’s head of marketing communications Dominic Owens will report to Mohebbi.
Duncan Ingram has been standing in for Flaherty since she moved back to the US in anticipation of taking a role in the new Concert company – the result of the proposed merger between BT and MCI.
But this has been thrown into chaos by the intervention of US telecoms group Worldcom, with a $30bn (19bn) bid for MCI.
