How BT’s Boss is Turning the Tide

Published: 06 July 2026. The English Chronicle Desk. The English Chronicle Online.

If timing is everything, then Allison Kirkby may have judged her new role perfectly. Since becoming the first female chief executive of BT over two years ago, she has succeeded. The company’s share price has climbed by eighty percent, reflecting a massive investor-pleasing turnaround effort. This success has seen Kirkby well-rewarded with a pay and bonus package of five million pounds. This figure represents the largest sum for a telecoms boss in well over a decade now. However, many analysts still have questions about how much credit Kirkby can personally take for this.

The fifty-eight-year-old Glaswegian joined the BT board back in two thousand and nineteen while still serving. She was then the chief executive of the Swedish telecoms company known to everyone as Telia today. Last week, she received widespread plaudits for finally engineering a solution to deal with the international division. This specific division has been a major financial drag on BT for a very long time. An exit strategy has been tortuously trickling along since a scandal at BT Italia occurred recently. That disaster wiped more than eight billion pounds off the firm’s total market value a decade ago. It ultimately cost the former chief executive officer, Gavin Patterson, his job at the iconic company.

As years of huge investment in addressing the United Kingdom’s status as a laggard taper off, things change. Full-fibre broadband now covers more than two-thirds of the country and will continue to grow fast. BT could be churning out three billion pounds in annual free cashflow by the end of this decade. The need for fewer engineers and the rollout of artificial intelligence will see the workforce shrink too. The total count will drop by about forty percent to around seventy-five thousand by the coming decade. Kirkby recently raised the company’s savings target from three billion to three point seven billion pounds sterling.

However, there are those who believe that the foundations for much of this benefit were laid earlier. Many observers argue that the real work was done by her predecessor, the former boss Philip Jansen. His tenure has been characterised as that of a wartime general during a very difficult economic period. He instigated only the third dividend cut in the history of BT to pay for infrastructure. He faced a global pandemic and the company’s first national strike in over thirty-five years of operation. He also oversaw huge staff and cost cuts while off-loading the very costly BT Sport television business.

One former senior executive says she inherited a good hand with many solid fundamentals in place today. Some might say she has been a lucky general, but she has also been a driving force. She is no-nonsense, a clever operator, and her subsequent decisions have been very smart for the firm. And she is still facing plenty of challenges despite the recent improvements in the company’s core operations. Sunil Bharti Mittal, the Indian telecoms billionaire who is BT’s largest shareholder, has taken a board seat. Another senior executive from his company has also joined the board to help guide the future strategy.

While Kirkby does not need to worry about a hostile takeover attempt, there is intense market pressure. The government has said it would block any increase on his current twenty-four percent stake right now. They want to maintain strict control over what they term as our nation’s critical sovereign digital infrastructure. There is added pressure to grow in a competitive market as smaller rivals capture more market share daily. BT is facing competition from a resurgent Vodafone, which overtook EE as the biggest mobile operator lately. That firm created a new entity through a mega-merger that has seen its market value surge higher. Shares in BT, which reported a three percent decline in total revenues last year, have faced struggles.

A recent U-turn on a decision to retire the venerable BT brand name has also proven quite confusing. The relaunch of the brand, which included sponsorship of Euro twenty-twenty-eight, was held in May at Wembley. EE has been the stadium sponsor and lead partner there since the year two thousand and fourteen effectively. Experts suggest it is going to be confusing because it looks like a flip-flopping branding strategy today. But the rationale behind it is sensible because BT is emotionally hard-wired into our national culture already. EE has only delivered in the mobile space, but they are trying to be the nation’s brand. It makes logical sense to leverage the history of BT for all services in the near future.

BT’s fightback is bearing fruit with subscriber numbers across its consumer operations showing growth for the first time. The units like EE, broadband, mobile, and television are finally showing signs of life after many years. It has been losing customers at its infrastructure arm, Openreach, which is a major concern for investors. It lost eight hundred and twenty-five thousand broadband customers last year in the fight against very cheap rivals. The company is forecasting it will lose another eight hundred thousand this year, which is quite significant. That will take the total over a five-year period to three million users from its current base.

However, losses have now peaked and are expected to fall to two hundred thousand annually by two thousand thirty. Kirkby has been vocal about her frustrations at the low value of Openreach within the stock market. It will reach thirty million homes with full-fibre broadband by the end of this decade at this pace. Analysts at New Street Research estimate that Openreach is worth thirty billion pounds on its own merit. Openreach is the perennial question for investors who want to see the real value unlocked very soon. The wider group does not reflect the value of its constituents, and that is a major issue.

Openreach is now probably the most valuable component of that, particularly when the fibre build is finally complete. How will she realise that value for the shareholders who have waited a very long time indeed? Every few years there is speculation that BT may look to sell the whole or part of Openreach. But this has always been dismissed due to the complexities involved, mostly relating to the massive pension scheme. The telecoms company pays hundreds of millions into that scheme annually to keep it funded and stable. However, one insider says that by two thousand thirty, the numbers in the scheme start dropping faster. The main pension scheme closed to new members back in two thousand and one, helping the long-term outlook.

When asked why he was drawn to leading companies with immense challenges, fellow Scot Adam Crozier commented. As the BT chair, he has led Royal Mail and ITV, and he knows exactly what it takes. He once attributed it to a trait he described as thrawn, a Scots word meaning difficult or intractable. To achieve her ambitious aims at BT, the no-nonsense Kirkby will certainly need to be quite thrawn. She must navigate complex regulatory environments while ensuring that the infrastructure remains robust for all British citizens. Her success will depend on her ability to keep shareholders happy while investing for the long term. Only time will tell if her bold vision will secure the company’s place in the future market.

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