BT staff reel after massive shake-up

BT’s marketing departments were left reeling this week after an announcement of a full-scale company restructure, with ten new divisions to replace the business and consumer divisions.

Marketing will be centralised under Afshin Mohebbi, the former managing director of BT business division.

The heads of each new division will take a place on the BT UK board under group managing director Bill Cockburn and the changes will be phased in from October.

Mohebbi becomes head of the BT UK markets division with annual sales of more than 10bn. The arm incorporates marketing, advertising and market research operations.

Management structure from the division heads down has not been announced. A BT spokeswoman says there will be no job losses but admits there will be some overlapping and duplication.

A BT insider says “natural fallout” is to be expected and the changes “won’t be without pain”. The marketing departments were described as “reeling” from the news with employees awaiting further announcements.

Decisions regarding the marketing management structure are expected to follow.

The consumer and business divisions are without marketing directors. Peter Conway is consumer division acting sales and marketing director, while Kate Notman is business division general manager and head of offers and communications.

Head of market management Judy Dean had been assigned to fill the gap temporarily left by the departure of consumer division head of advertising Sholto Douglas-Home this month. Business division head of marketing communications Dominic Owens walked out of BT two weeks ago, following the appointment of Cellnet brand director Tim Evans as BT head of brand and corporate communications.

One of the other divisions, BT UK enterprises, will encompass seven businesses which will each have their own marketing teams. They include Yellow Pages, which was previously run as a standalone unit, and payphones.

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