TPG sets out vision with refreshed exec line‑up

TPG Telecom marked the one‑year anniversary of its merger with Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) with a renewed strategic vision, to be driven by three newly‑appointed executives.

Three new roles have been created, and TPG Chief Executive Iñaki Berroeta has filled them with faces familiar in both the TPG and Vodafone camps.

• Craig Levy, formerly Chief Operating Officer (COO), will switch to a Group Executive, New Business Development position. He will oversee on‑net strategy, with a particular focus on fixed wireless. Levy was named COO at the inception of TPG in 2020 (Vodafonewatch, #188). Prior to that, he spent 17 years at TPG Corporation.

• Jonathan Rutherford, Vice‑President, Business‑to‑Business (B2B) at Vodafone Czech Republic, is set to join TPG as Group Executive, Enterprise & Government. Rutherford spent time in B2B commercial roles at Vodafone Ireland and Vodafone UK before moving to the Czech OpCo. He was replaced in the Czech Republic by Veronika Brazdilova in June 2021.

• Ana Bordeianu, acting Group Executive, Enterprise & Government, will pivot to become Group Executive, Customer Operations & Shared Services. She will take responsibility for customer service operations, including the development of “consistent” customer experience standards across the large family of brands TPG inherited from the 2020 transaction (and has since expanded with the release of its eco-conscious Felix offering — Vodafonewatch, #191). Bordeianu was previously Chief Customer Officer for TPG’s Lebara and Vodafone brands. She has followed Berroeta in recent years, crossing paths at Vodafone Romania and VHA during Berroeta’s tenures as CEO at the respective businesses.

Bordeianu and Levy will take their places on 19 July 2021, while Rutherford will arrive later in the month. They will each report to the CEO.

Strategic priorities

The appointments line up directly with the post-merger “strategic priorities” laid out at TPG’s Annual General Meeting in May 2021. Then, Berroeta outlined three avenues for growth:

1. Providing a richer product portfolio for converged households.
2. On‑net services, taking advantage of TPG ‑owned fixed infrastructure and the recently‑launched 5G services.
3. Heightened focus on enterprise, government, and wholesale customers.

Bordeianu will support Kieran Cooney, Consumer lead, in delivering on the first target. Berroeta said the pair would be “working closely” together to “drive household growth”.

Levy, who supported the operator’s 5G home services launch in June 2021, will lead the on‑net expansion and “drive continuous innovation” in the area, said Berroeta.

Rutherford, meanwhile, will drive enterprise customer growth with help from Christine Russo, a former Telstra executive who was recently appointed General Manager for Enterprise & Government Customer Sales & Strategy.

TPG turning red with more changes to come

The three new appointments join an evolving leadership team at TPG, seeing the surprise departure of Chairman David Teoh (TPG’s founder) in March 2021, and news that Chief Financial Officer Stephen Banfield (another long-time TPG staffer) is readying to leave the company in November 2021, with a replacement yet to be named.

Cooney is another recent change. The Group Executive, Consumer joined in March 2021 from Australian broadcaster Foxtel Group, where he led Customer, Sales & Marketing. As with most on the Executive Team, he also spent time at a Vodafone business: four years at Vodafone New Zealand.