TalkTalk is back in the news after it emerged at the end of last week that the internet giant is facing a potential takeover deal from Virgin Media 02 that would value it at £3bn.
The Salford-headquartered company has been in private hands for just over a year following a £1.1bn deal.
TalkTalk was founded by Sir Charles Dunstone and was spun out of Carphone Warehouse in 2010.
It’s facing a bid from Virgin Media O2 which was formed in June 2021 as a joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica.
Below, BusinessLive profiles the top team at TalkTalk who will help decided whether to accept any formal offer that may be put forward.
Tristia Harrison
Tristia Harrison has been the CEO of TalkTalk since March 2017, having previously served as managing director of TalkTalk’s consumer business.
She is also an independent non-executive director at Next, the trustee chair of homelessness charity Crisis, and an honorary trustee at the national charity Ambitious about Autism.
She is also a member of the CEO board and a founder member of the industry campaign against online harms, Internet Matters.
From May 2011 to June 2020, she served as a trustee at Comic Relief.
She has held a number of senior management and executive positions in The Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk Group, having first joined CPW in 2000.
Jonathan Thackray
Jonathan Thackray took up the role as group CFO in July 2021 having joined TalkTalk six years prior.
He had previously held finance director roles in the group’s wholesale, network and technology business units.
He has over 20 years’ experience in several senior telecoms finance and commercial roles including within EE and Orange.
He has also been part of several Virgin business start-ups in the UK and across Central and Eastern Europe.
Jonathan Kini
Jonathan Kini is the managing director of the division that houses all of TalkTalk’s customers.
Prior to this, he was responsible for leading and shaping the growth of TalkTalk Business, the UK’s largest B2B provider of broadband, fibre and ethernet data services.
He has also held senior roles in Virgin Media and Vodafone across both B2C and B2B, most recently working for Drax Plc as CEO of the customer business.
He is a non-executive director at the water services regulation authority, Ofwat.
As chairman of Business in the Community’s (BITC) Net Zero Carbon Taskforce, he works alongside the Government, BITC and businesses of all sizes to find simple, effective and innovative ways to help companies take action and create a more sustainable future.
He also supports the Bank of England as an independent non-executive director.
Nick Gunga
Nick Gunga leads TalkTalk’s wholesale services division, which incorporates its strategic relationships in the B2B and B2C markets.
In addition, he manages its key relationships with its infrastructure providers such as Openreach and City Fibre. He also leads TalkTalk’s alternative network strategy.
He was previously chief operating officer of TalkTalk Consumer, having been in the role since April 2018.
He joined the group in 2005 and in the last 16 years he has spanned senior roles in sales, customer service, digital transformation and operations.
Paul Eayres
Phil Eayres first joined the business as operations director in consumer and later became an independent strategic advisor leading the development and disposal of FibreNation.
More recently, he has returned to the company full time as chief financial officer, before being appointed group strategy director in 2021.
He also spent eight years in various roles for supermarket group Pick n Pay in South Africa, having begun his career in finance at Shell, PepsiCo and Diageo before joining Bain & Company in 1999.
Nicole Jennings
Nicole Jennings is TalkTalk’s group transformation director having first joined in November 2016 as technology service director.
She has worked in the telecoms industry for over 20 years, including senior roles at Telewest, ntl:Telewest, Virgin Media and Capita.
Phil Haslam
Chief technology officer Phil Haslam has over 25 years’ experience of the telecoms domain with international experience in Europe and the US before joining Opal Telecom and then TalkTalk.
He’s played a number of roles across the growing TalkTalk organisation, leading transformation across operations, IT and networks before being appointed chief technology officer.
He is now is responsible for the scale and performance of TalkTalk’s network.
Daniel Kasmir
Chief people and procurement office Daniel Kasmir joined TalkTalk in March 2019. after gaining experience of HR in a number of organisations including Shell, Manpower, FNZ, Xchanging and BDO.
He has worked in private equity as both an adviser and within portfolio companies for General Atlantic, JC Flowers and Bain Capital.
Adam Dunlop
Adam Dunlop is the managing director in charge of supply and partnerships.
He spent his early career as a consultant on international trade and investment in emerging markets and joined TalkTalk in January 2022.
Mr Dunlop previously served as managing director of iD Mobile, which he launched in 2015 for Dixons Carphone.
Prior to this, he held various leadership roles at Cable & Wireless, from working on UK broadband regulation to having responsibility for B2C and B2B communications businesses in international markets.
He led projects for clients such as Barclays, The United Nations and The European Commission.
