The chief executive behind BT's £10bn national network, 21CN, has resigned just six months into the job.
The telco announced on Tuesday that Andy Green will leave to become chief executive of services specialist LogicaCMG on 1 January, 2008.
When Green accepted his role as chief executive of group strategy and operations following a company restructuring in April, he took on responsibility for building 21CN (21st Century Network), BT's next-generation network, which is scheduled for completion in 2011. He also had a wider remit covering design and operation of BT's infrastructure.
Green's is the second major departure from the 21CN programme in just four months. Paul Reynolds, chief executive of BT's wholesale arm and the creator of 21CN, resigned in late June.
BT moved quickly to counter suggestions that the departure of Reynolds and Green was the beginning of a trend. "Andy's departure is in no way related to 21CN," said a BT spokesperson. "Andy felt he had completed the tasks put in front of him and the opportunity [at LogicaCMG] was too good to turn down."
The upgrade to BT 21CN was previously scheduled for completion by 2010, but now the telco has quietly moved its deadline back to 2011.
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21CN will now be implemented over three years from 2008, according to BT's website. Some parts of northern England, Scotland, Wales and south-west England will not be migrated to the all-IP network by 2010.
Describing his 21 years at BT as "fantastic", Green said he would continue to work with BT as a business partner at Logica CMG.
Green was the chief executive of BT's business arm, BT Global Services, for six years until April. In the year 2000, he headed the telco's broadband rollout.
The 21CN programme will now be headed by Al-Noor Ramji, chief executive of BT Design, and Roel Louwhoff, chief executive of BT Operate, both of whom previously reported to Green.
Ramji and Louwhoff will now report directly to group chief executive Ben Verwaayen. Green will not be replaced.
Talkback
It is so sad to see two of the best minds in BT driven out by someone that has only one thing on his mind and that is to be the boss at any cost, so watch out Ben he is after your job. This man has got one hell of a reputation wherever he has worked, he doesn't care what happens to the people around him or the people that have to make a living. In BT now there are people that have lost their jobs to outsourcing and offshoring, these are not call centre jobs, these are highly skilled jobs, people with years of experience, knowledge and had built up a network of contacts within and external to BT that was second to none, now on the scrapheap These people were willing to learn and take on new technology in their stride but that is not enough. It is well known that BT has got an ageing workforce and I believe this is an underhand way of forcing these people to take redundancy; BT will not make compulsory redundancy as it would cost them far too much but they will grind these people down until they have had enough and will leave under their own steam.
The people either go into a redeployment unit or on the bench, it is said that from here they will get first choice of jobs that come up but in reality there are only very few that get jobs and in the end are so demoralised that they take the easy way out and leaving terms. BT keep the shareholders and unions happy because they are cutting the head count and people are leaving at their own freewill but I call it constructive dismissal and bullying t the worse degree.
So watch out Ben, Al is after your job!