Gavin Patterson (born 6 September 1967) is a

businessman A businessperson, businessman, or businesswoman is an individual who has founded, owns, or holds shares in (including as an angel investor) a private-sector company. A businessperson undertakes activities (commercial or industrial) for the ...

who was President & Chief Revenue Officer of

Salesforce Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, a ...

and Chief Executive of BT Group from 2013–19.

Early life

He was born in

Altrincham Altrincham ( , locally ) is a market town in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, south of the River Mersey. It is southwest of Manchester city centre, southwest of Sale and east of Warrington. At the 2011 Census, it had a population ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tam ...

in 1967, and attended schools in

Warrington Warrington () is a town and unparished area in the borough of the same name in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, on the banks of the River Mersey. It is east of Liverpool, and west of Manchester. The population in 2019 was estimat ...

and

Yeovil Yeovil ( ) is a town and civil parish in the district of South Somerset, England. The population of Yeovil at the last census (2011) was 45,784. More recent estimates show a population of 48,564. It is close to Somerset's southern border with ...

. He graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge with a bachelor's degree in

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

Career

Early career Prior to BT, he spent four years at Virgin Media and nine years at Procter & Gamble. Patterson is a Non-Executive Director at British Airways, the APAX-backed AI business Fractal, and a Trustee of the British Museum. He was European head of marketing at

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer he ...

for their

Pantene Pantene () is a brand of hair care products owned by Procter & Gamble. The product line was first introduced in Europe in 1945 by Hoffmann-La Roche, which branded the name based on panthenol as a shampoo ingredient. It was purchased by Procter & ...

line of hair products. In 2000, he joined the cable company

Telewest Telewest (previously Telewest Broadband and Telewest Communications) was a cable internet, broadband internet, telephone supplier and cable television provider in the United Kingdom. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange, and was also onc ...

, managing their television services. In 2004, he moved to BT to be the managing director of their consumer division. He launched

BT Vision BT TV is a subscription IPTV service offered by BT; a division of United Kingdom telecommunications company BT Group, and was originally launched as BT Vision in December 2006. As of the end of June 2019, BT TV had 1.9 million customers. ...

which provided on-demand TV and subsequently was responsible for their broadband offerings such as the optical fibre service,

BT Infinity BT Superfast Fibre (formerly BT Infinity) is a broadband service in the United Kingdom provided by BT Consumer, the consumer sales arm of the BT Group. The underlying network is fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC), which uses optical fibre for all excep ...

. At BT, his management style was a mix of relaxed, stylish marketing with aggressive cost-cutting. He was known for his flamboyant appearance of romantic black hair and open shirt collars. The previous chief executive, Ian Livingston, said of him, "...one button undone was fine, two was a bit racy, and three was Gavin." This marketing-executive style was novel and successful in the conservative corporate culture of BT and, as a high-flyer, he joined the board of BT in 2008.

BT

He was appointed chief executive of the

BT Group BT Group plc ( trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, bro ...

in 2013 to replace Ian Livingston who was ennobled to join the government as Baron Livingston of Parkhead and Minister of State for Trade and Investment. During his tenure at BT, the firm completed the U.K. rollout of the superfast fiber and started the deployment of the ultrafast fiber. He led the $19.7 billion acquisition of EE, launched BT Sport, expanded BT’s cybersecurity practice, and championed BT’s social purpose agenda. He joined BT in 2004 as MD Consumer and joined the board as CEO of BT Retail in 2008. In August 2013, he was ranked as number 26 in the 2013 ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

s Media 100 , his first appearance in the list. In December 2013, ''

Computer Weekly ''Computer Weekly'' is a digital magazine and website for IT professionals in the United Kingdom. It was formerly published as a weekly print magazine by Reed Business Information for over 45 years. Topics covered within the magazine include outs ...

'' ranked him as number 8 in its UKtech50 for 2013 . He was BT's representative on the

Confederation of British Industry The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is a UK business organisation, which in total claims to speak for 190,000 businesses, this is made up of around 1,500 direct members and 188,500 non-members. The non members are represented through the 1 ...

(CBI)'s Climate Change Board, 2008-

013 013 is a music venue in Tilburg, the Netherlands. The venue opened in 1998 and replaced the ''Noorderligt'', the ''Bat Cave'' and the ''MuziekKantenWinkel''. 013 is the largest popular music venue in the southern Netherlands. There are two concer ...

and joined the

World Business Council for Sustainable Development The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a CEO-led organization of over 200 international companies. The Council is also connected to 60 national and regional business councils and partner organizations. Its origins ...

(WBCSD)'s Executive Committee effective 1 January 2015, after the company joined in April 2014. On 25 October 2018, it was announced that Philip Jansen, the outgoing CEO of Worldpay, would succeed him as CEO of BT, with effect from 1 February 2019, as "a change of leadership was needed".

Fractal Analytics

In November 2019, it was announced that Patterson had joined the board of directors for the artificial intelligence company Fractal Analytics.

Elixirr

In November 2019, Patterson had joined the board of directors for the Challenger Consultancy Elixirr as non-Executive Chairman. Together with Founder and CEO, Stephen Newton, Patterson then led Elixirr to one of the most successful IPO's during the Covid 19 lockdown.

Other interests

He is a fellow of the Marketing Society and a member of the Thirty Club for advertising professionals. He was appointed president of the

Advertising Association The Advertising Association (AA) is a trade association representing advertisers, agencies, media and research services in the UK advertising industry. Its stated aim is to promote the “…role, rights and responsibilities of advertising and i ...

in 2011. He is a non-executive director of

British Airways British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers ...

, a trustee of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, and is on the board of

Cambridge Judge Business School Cambridge Judge Business School is the business school of the University of Cambridge. The School is a provider of management education. It is named after Sir Paul Judge, a founding benefactor of the school. The School is considered to be par ...

. He is a Non-Executive Director at British Airways, the APAX-backed AI business Fractal, and a Trustee of the British Museum.

Personal life

His wife, Karen, is a fashion marketer who worked for

Donna Karan Donna Karan (, born Donna Ivy Faske), also known as "DK", is an American fashion designer and the creator of the Donna Karan New York and DKNY clothing labels. Early life Karan was born Donna Ivy Faske to mother Helen "Queenie" Faske (née Rabin ...

. He has supported

Liverpool Football Club Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has ...

since his early years in nearby Warrington.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Patterson, Gavin Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge British chief executives British Telecom people Living people 1967 births People from Warrington People from Surrey British Airways people Trustees of the British Museum British advertising executives