Speaker Details
Ian Livingston
CEO, BT Group
Ian Livingston became CEO of BT Group on 1 June 2008 after holding two key executive roles in the company which he joined in April 2002. He has served on the Board as Group Finance Director, and CEO BT Retail.
Mr Livingston studied Economics at Manchester University then qualified as a Chartered Accountant. He worked for Bank of America International and 3i before joining Dixons Group plc in 1991. He was appointed Group Finance Director at Dixons at the age of 32, making him the youngest FTSE 100 director by some distance.
During Mr Livingston's time with the company, Dixons enjoyed a period of dramatic international expansion, extending its operations into 11 countries through a mixture of acquisition and organic growth. He worked and lived for a time in the United States as CFO of the company's $1bn dollar American subsidiary. In 1998 his Corporate Development Team launched Freeserve . He floated the business a year later in the first major European floatation of an internet company. Freeserve became a FTSE company which was sold for around £1.5bn in 2001 (from an original start up cost of £240,000).
Mr Livingston joined BT as Group Finance Director just four months after Ben Verwaayen took over as Group CEO. During the three years he spent in this post the company's financial position was transformed. Operating cashflow improved from negative £88m to positive £2.1bn, debt reduced by £6bn and costs fell by around £400m per annum.
In February 2005 Mr Livingston was appointed CEO of BT Retail which is responsible for all BT's UK small and medium enterprise and consumer business, BT Ireland and BT Enterprises (a portfolio of businesses including BT Conferencing, BT Directories, BT Redcare and Dabs.com). BT Retail has revenues of more than £8bn. Under his leadership the division profits turned around from an annual rate of double digit decline into double digit profit growth, with annual profits of around £1.5bn. This was achieved in a ferociously competitive market.
