BT Wales Board

The BT Wales board was established in 2002 in order to identify ways to continually improve effectiveness by BT in Wales.  As a senior strategic team the board come together at a high level as members of the BT Wales Board but otherwise work independently across BT's lines of business.

The BT Wales board is made up of people from a variety of backgrounds across the business who all bring their particular knowledge and experiences together for the benefit of BT and the wider community.

Ann Beynon, BT Director Wales heads the BT Cymru / Wales team. 
Ann plays a key co-ordinating role across the various BT activities in Wales and manages the BT Wales Board as well as the team for Wales.  Ann's emphasis is on helping people, businesses and communities in Wales harness the opportunities of communications technologies.  She and her team play a key role, with the BT Wales Board and Wales Advisory Forum in communicating with key organisations and individuals in Wales.

Board members

David Edwards - Head of Data Centres, BT Operate
David and his management team are responsible for running the rapidly increasing BT Data Centre Estate across the UK. With a team of managers and technical support he is responsible for server deployment, security, and infrastructure at more than 40 locations including the data centres at Cardiff Bay and Stadium House. Born and still living in Cardiff, David joined BT in 1978 and has worked in many area's including sales, service and bridge operations. Ten years in training and development saw David take a lead role in design and delivery of a wide range of subjects including sales, business development, negotiation and global service management. Although gaining great personal satisfaction in helping people develop their skills in these area's, David wanted to put much of his own development into practice and accepted a role in setting up a new bridge operation in Cardiff in 2001. Promoted to a regional operations role in 2003 David moved on take over responsibility for all UK data centres in 2005 and received a BT Platinum award the following year for delivery of a 'mobility' programme that has produced significant customer, business and individual benefit. Key area's of focus moving forward include a upskilling programme to provide operations support at a greater number of locations including customer own premises and exploring the benefits of green methodology within data centres in order to reduce our carbon footprint.

Sharanne Basham-Pyke - Business Transformation Director, BT Global Services
As Programme Director, Sharanne is leading a complex tripartite relationship between the housing sector, private sector (construction, green technologies and energy businesses) and the education sector in the Heads of the Valleys, an area of significant deprivation in Wales. The programme will develop a low carbon zone and address the green skills gap, ensuring that the private sector is heard as a collective voice, from the large corporates to the small businesses and start-ups in the region. The programme is receiving Ministerial and official support and extensive involvement from the private sector.

Previously, Sharanne was Sustainability Enablement Director for Global Services and was responsible for enabling a pipeline of £368M.
As Client Operations Director for Devolved Government in Wales, Sharanne was responsible for building BT's business for all government transformational, ICT and traditional business in Wales. She managed a team of dedicated and flexible resources for the portfolio of accounts and developed strategic partnerships to significantly grow this sector in Wales. Sharanne joined BT in September 1999 from a background in management consultancy. Since joining BT she has grasped the opportunity to work in a number of lines of business, including government, regions, customer contact centres and IT.

She is a Board Member of Cardiff Business School’s International Advisory Board, mentor to a senior police officer, and an engineer from Rolls-Royce, is mentor to 7 BT people from different sectors, an active member of the BT Women’s Executive Network, a facilitator and leadership coach for the Campaign for Leadership (former Industrial Society), a campaigner for Welsh language education and awareness groups, and former Board Member of a Housing Association.

Sharanne was born and educated in Newport, South Wales. She is married with two children who both attend Welsh language schools. Sharanne is a slow, but persistent, Welsh learner and has a particular interest in Welsh language and multi-lingual service delivery.

Mark Rosson - Director Indirect Channel, BT Wholesale
Mark is responsible for 193 of GS UK’s top customers from several key industry sectors including, Construction, Utilities, Professional Services & Manufacturing, with a combined total annual revenue of £330M and £500M of annual sales. He joined BT two years ago as Director, BTB Solutions Business, responsible for the development, delivery and in-life management of customised IT services and solutions for a broad range of customers. Prior to joining BT, Mark was Managing Director, SI Channel at Cable & Wireless where he also spent an interesting period building their Global Alliance programme throughout the early ’90s and the dotcom period. Mark has also held a number of senior sales and management roles with System Integrator’s and, earlier in his career, at Xerox Corporation. Born and brought up in Conwy in North Wales Mark now lives near Wrexham with his wife and two sons all of whom are fluent Welsh speakers. He is committed to helping develop Wales and the Welsh economy. Outside of work Mark enjoys a variety of sporting interests and is a keen follower of Welsh rugby and Manchester United.

Dai Jeremiah – Deputy General Manager ICT Solutions
Dai heads up the corporate ICT Solutions Specialists for Wales, Midlands and the South of England. His team of 50 specialists focus on the top 1,000 corporate customers and offer a range of new wave solutions based on around BT's new portfolio of Unified communications and IT services.

Born In Ebbw Vale, Dai grew up in Crickhowell South Wales. He has extensive global experience in telecommunications and IT services and has held a number of senior sales and marketing roles whilst working Australasia, predominantly in China, Australia and New Zealand. Prior to joining BT in November 2007, Dai spent seven years at Telecom NZ and was head of sales and marketing in the province of Taranaki.

He is married to a new Zealander with two young sons 9 and 6. Dai enjoys golf, rugby, history and football. He is passionate about economic development in Wales and looks forward to making a positive contribution whilst serving on the board of BT Wales.

Robert Milloy - Partner Director, BT Global Services
As an Partner Director with one of BT largest Global customers (AT&T), Rob is responsible for managing BT’s business relationship within Germany, Spain and Italy. Rob also has a responsibility for ‘major deals’ and the sell through relationship with AT&T. He brings over 10 years sales experience to the account having worked with a number of International Carriers such as COLT and Global Crossing along with a wide variety of IT / Carriers and SPs.

Rob began his career with BT after completing both his Degree and Masters Degree in Swansea. He joined BT through the BT Graduate Programme in sales via Telemarketing. Rob has had a wide variety of experience of the IT / Telecoms industry having worked in Retail, Global Services and Wholesale.

In his spare time Rob is a keen Martial Artist having studied a number of Korean and Japanese arts over the years. Rob lives in Wales (Swansea) with his wife Emma and two young sons Lewis and William.

Andrew Board – Project Director, BT Innovate & Design
Andrew works in the IT Billing service delivery & major customer account sector of GS Products & Service Design (P&SD) delivering technology solutions for GS across the globe. He grew up in Penarth, South Wales and has an honours degree in Economics from UCL. Andrew has worked for or in all the BT lines of business in various roles relating to IT & Networks over the 25 years that he has worked for the company. He has delivered a number of large billing systems for the business and was the Project Director for the 21CN Pilot project in Cardiff which went live in November 2006. As a professional programme manager, Andrew believes strongly that good project management disciplines and methodologies (such as MSP and Prince2) make a huge difference to successful project delivery but also feels that clear governance, sponsorship and good communications are the essential ingredients to successful technology implementation and enhanced customer relationships. Through membership of the BT Wales Board Andrew is committed to promote the growth and development of the IT sector in Wales. He is a Member of the British Computer Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufacturing & Commerce.

Dr Gaynor Lloyd-Davies - Regional Business Development Director – Wales, BT Global Services
Gaynor is a senior ICT professional with particular expertise and experience in ICT enabled change. Gaynor works as Client Industry Executive Wales in BT’s Global Services. Prior to joining BT in 2007, Gaynor worked for Oracle Corporation for 10 years where she held a number of senior roles related to the adoption and change management wrap for global rollouts of enterprise applications and systems both customer facing and internal to Oracle. Gaynor’s academic background is organisation behaviour, management psychology with particular expertise in leadership and Behaviour Profiling.
In 2008 Gaynor worked as an ICT Sector secondee into Welsh Assembly Government, during this time she worked on a collaboration project in North Wales between WAG, Bangor University Business School and the local community. During this secondment she co-created the GIFT project ( Green Innovation and Future Technology ) which has just secured €2 million INTERREG funding. Project GIFT will be the collaboration between Bangor University’s Business and Environment Schools, Waterford Institute of Technology and University College Dublin, to establish a green innovation forum to help grow a sustainable green economy in Wales and Ireland. Gaynor is currently working with senior civil servants in Welsh Assembly Government in putting together an Alumni Event for BT GS Vital Vision to be hosted by the Perm Sec Wales in Cardiff in September 2011.

Laura Toscano – Senior HR Manager, BT Wholesale
Laura is a Senior HR Manager for BT Wholesale where she leads on the Talent agenda responsible for developing our high potential people. In addition she is a HR Business Partner for two Service Operations teams where the key focus is on transforming the way we work to improve customer experience. Laura has worked for BT for 5 years previously within Openreach as a business partner for the Wales region and in a Strategic Resourcing role within the Service Delivery organisation. With over 10 years experience as a HR professional prior to joining BT Laura worked for Dwr Cymru Welsh Water and latterly the Forensic Science Service taking the HR lead at their Chepstow laboratory. Laura was born, brought up and lives in Cardiff. Outside work she has recently been appointed as an LEA School Governor for Christ The King School, Cardiff.
 
Geraint Strello – Welsh Language Policy Manager, BT Wales
Geraint is the Welsh Language Policy Manager and plays a co-ordinating role across the various BT activities in Wales. In addition to his Welsh language role, Geraint’s emphasis is on helping people, businesses and communities in Wales harness the opportunities of communications technologies. With over 30 years experience in BT in various roles including engineering, customer services and contact centre management, he plays a key role in the running of the BT Wales Board and Wales Advisory Forum and in communicating with key organisations and individuals in Wales.

Outside of work, Geraint is the chairman of the Search & Rescue Dogs Association.

Ceri Fitzpatrick - Partnerships Director BT Wales, BT Retail
Ceri is based in South Wales and is responsible for delivery of BT Regions strategy locally, working closely with the Wales Advisory Forum and BT Wales Board. She has 20 years experience in BT in various roles including Call centre Management, HR, procurement and marketing. Her key objectives are closing the digital divide by working with partner organisations, supporting the local and regional CSR initiatives and being a local point of contact for key organisations.