Phillip Keague Bentley (born 14 January 1959) is a British businessman. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) of

Mitie Mitie Group PLC (pronounced "mighty") is a British strategic outsourcing and energy services company. It provides infrastructure consultancy, facilities management, property management, energy and healthcare services. It has a head office at The ...

, and formerly the CEO of

Cable & Wireless Communications Cable & Wireless Communications Ltd operating as C&W Communications is a telecommunications company which has operations in the Caribbean and Central America. It is owned by Liberty Latin America and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. It ...

. and the managing director of

British Gas British Gas (trading as Scottish Gas in Scotland) is an energy and home services provider in the United Kingdom. It is the trading name of British Gas Services Limited and British Gas New Heating Limited, both subsidiaries of Centrica. Servi ...

, the British retail arm of the energy company Centrica.

Early and personal life

Bentley was brought up in Bradford, and attended

Woodhouse Grove School Woodhouse Grove School ('The Grove') is an independent, co-educational, day and boarding public school and Sixth Form. it is located to the north of Apperley Bridge, West Yorkshire, England (Apperley Bridge is located in the City of Bradfor ...

in Apperley Bridge. He holds a master's degree from Pembroke College, Oxford and an MBA from

INSEAD INSEAD, a contraction of "Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires" () is a non-profit business school that maintains campuses in Europe (Fontainebleau, France), Asia (Singapore), the Middle East (Abu Dhabi, UAE), and North America (San ...

. He is also a fellow of the

Chartered Institute of Management Accountants The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) is the global professional management accounting body based out of the UK. CIMA offers training and qualification in management accountancy and related subjects. It is focused on accountan ...

. Bentley is married and has two children.

Career

Bentley joined BP's graduate recruitment scheme in 1982, training as a

management accountant In management accounting or managerial accounting, managers use accounting information in decision-making and to assist in the management and performance of their control functions. Definition One simple definition of management accounting is th ...

. He worked in China from 1983 to 1985, and then Egypt and the US, before returning to the UK as head of capital markets. He joined

Grand Metropolitan Grand Metropolitan plc was a leisure, manufacturing and property conglomerate headquartered in England. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it merged with Guinness plc to for ...

in 1995, which became Diageo in 1997; from 1 July 1999 until 2000 he was finance director of UDV Guinness.

Centrica

Bentley was group finance director of Centrica from 2000 to February 2007. and was also managing director, Europe from July 2004 to September 2006. On 19 September 2006 it was announced that Bentley would become the managing director of British Gas, part of the Centrica group, taking over from Mark Clare from March 2007. Bentley's stewardship was often controversial, as the company raised residential energy prices several times during his reign; protests at company premises were not unusual. Bentley frequently appeared in the media defending the company's decisions. The controversy was fuelled by the rise in profits during Bentley's stewardship – profits from the residential energy division of British Gas increased by 24% in one year alone. Bentley repeatedly claimed that price rises were beyond the company's control, and that they were not increased to raise profits. Bentley said that the reason for the price increase was that average domestic gas consumption had increased by 12 per cent compared to the warmer previous year. Throughout his time at the company Bentley's salary (£681,000 in 2013) was the subject of frequent criticism. As managing director for seven-years, Bentley did have commercial success at Centrica, increasing turnover by nearly £4 billion. He was credited with improving the company’s customer services and rolling out new technologies such as smart meters. On 27 February 2013, Centrica announced that Bentley would step down from his role at British Gas, from the Centrica board on 30 June 2013, and leave the company's employment on 31 December 2013. Bentley was replaced by the managing director of

Direct Energy Direct Energy LP is a North American retailer of energy and energy services. The company was founded in Toronto in 1986 and now has more than four million customers in Canada and the United States. Direct Energy is a subsidiary of NRG Energy. His ...

(also part of the Centrica group) Chris Weston.

Cable and Wireless

On 17 October 2013 it was announced that Bentley would succeed Tony Rice as CEO of Cable & Wireless Communications from 1 January 2014, coinciding with the relocation of the company headquarters from London to Miami, Florida. On 6 January 2014, C&WC announced that Bentley had purchased 4.3 million shares in the company, at a value of around 3 times his basic salary of £800,000. He demitted office after the acquisition of CWC by Liberty Global on 16 May 2016.

Mitie

In October 2016, it was announced that he would succeed Ruby McGregor-Smith as CEO of

, which he duly did on 13 December 2016. Under Bentley’s leadership, Mitie has become the biggest FM operator in the UK, partly because of their acquisition of

Interserve Interserve is a British construction and support services business based in Reading, Berkshire, which went into administration in 2019 and which is expected to be wound up in 2024. At that time, the group generated revenue of £2.2 billion and h ...

in late 2020. Since the start of the COVID pandemic, Bentley has overseen Mitie’s work delivering a wide range of services, including running Covid-19 testing sites, cleaning offices and major transport services, and providing security for new quarantine hotels. He has also attempted to use the pandemic to redefine the traditional image of cleaning by introducing UVC robots and units. current basic salary of £900,000 – As the Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of MITIE Plc, the total compensation of Phil Bentley at MITIE Plc is £2,648,470. There are no executives at MITIE Plc getting paid more.

Other positions

Between 2002 and 2010 he was a

non-executive director A non-executive director (abbreviated to non-exec, NED or NXD), independent director or external director is a member of the board of directors of a corporation, such as a company, cooperative or non-government organization, but not a member of th ...

and chair of the audit committee of

Kingfisher plc Kingfisher plc is a British Multinational corporation, multinational retailing company headquartered in London, England. It has over 1,300 stores in nine countries, and its brands include B&Q, Castorama, Brico Dépôt and Screwfix. Kingfisher i ...

. On 1 October 2012 Bentley was apportioned

of global engineering group IMI, and also joined the

audit committee An audit committee is a committee of an organisation's board of directors which is responsible for oversight of the financial reporting process, selection of the independent auditor, and receipt of audit results both internal and external. In a U ...

and nominations committee.Phil Bentley
Kingfisher

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bentley, Phil 1959 births Living people British chief executives in the energy industry Businesspeople from Bradford Alumni of Pembroke College, Oxford INSEAD alumni Centrica people