Executive Committee

Rakesh Bhasin was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Colt in December 2006. Prior to joining Colt, Rakesh was President and Chief Executive at KVH Co. Ltd, a Fidelity Asia-focused telecom and network solutions provider headquartered in Tokyo.  He continues to be a non-executive Chairman of KVH Co. Ltd today.

Prior to joining KVH, Rakesh served in senior positions within AT&T, including head of AT&T Asia Pacific's managed network services business from 1993 – 1997 and President, AT&T Japan, Ltd. He was also Senior Managing Director, Japan Telecom Company Limited.

Rakesh received a Bachelor of Science degree in electronic engineering from George Washington University.  He also attended the Berkley Executive Program at the University of California at Berkeley and the Advanced Management Program at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

François Eloy was appointed EVP,  Colt Communication Services (CCS) in January 2011, François Eloy’s prime responsibility is to integrate the activities of the Wholesale and Midsize business divisions and focus on selling transactional services to meet needs of the channel through an indirect client engagement.

Previously Francois was Managing Director of Wholesale with the responsibility of positioning Wholesale at Colt as Europe's leading information delivery platform supplier to Carriers, Service Providers and System Integrators that require solutions across Europe. François joined Colt in January 2006 from BT Global Services where he successfully established BT France as a major new player with the launch of their Major Business Channel. He was previously with Equant for 10 years in a variety of roles, culminating in the position of Managing Director, Equant France.

Executive Director, 53, was appointed as Chief Financial Officer on 31 March 2011, having been a Non-Executive Director since 1 January 2009. He is a former Managing Director of Devonshire Investors and also served as Chairman of FIML Natural Resources and Backyard Farms Holding, LLC and as director on the boards of a number of other Devonshire portfolio companies. Prior to joining Fidelity, Mark was Vice President of Finance at Kronos Inc and began his career at Ernst & Young.

Bernard Geoghegan was appointed EVP Colt Data Centre Services (DCS) in January 2011. He is responsible for driving Colt’s focus on selling large scale data centre space to large enterprises and providers through our specialised DCS direct sales team.

He was previously Senior Vice President, at Digital Reality Trust where he was responsible for international business. Prior to joining Digital Realty Trust in 2008, he was the CEO of Servecentric Ltd, a provider of Co-location and premium Managed Services to the Irish market. Bernard has also held senior Operations and IT roles at Worldport and Xerox Europe.

Dr Jürgen Hernichel was appointed as EVP, Business Services Unit (BSU) in January 2011 with the responsibility of integrating the activities of Colt’s Shared Service Centres (including India, Barcelona and the Country Division). This enables Colt to scale its processing effectiveness across the shared service environments to simplify decision making, reduce bureaucracy and the unit cost of delivering services whilst increasing productivity. Previously Jürgen was Managing Director, Northern Region and Managing Director, Germany .

Prior to joining Colt, he spent seven years with T-Systems international – the business customer arm of Deutsche Telekom AG. At T-Systems, Jürgen was Managing Director Sales and Marketing which gave him responsibility for the worldwide major enterprise business of Deutsche Telekom AG.
He has also worked for NASA in California, USA and held senior positions at Thyssen Handelsunion, playing an important role in the foundation of Thyssen Telecom AG. He held several senior roles at Thyssen Telecom AG, including Managing Director and CEO of Plusnet GmbH, the corporate arm of Thyssen Telecom AG, and Managing Director EMEA of acquisitions Esprit Telecom and Globe Tele Systems.

Jürgen holds a PhD in physics and an MBA from University of Cologne.

Mark Leonard was appointed EVP, Infrastructure Services Unit (ISU) in January 2011, and is responsible for integrating the activities of Operations, Technology and IT.  The ISU is one service unit that owns network, IT infrastructure operations, technology as well as internal IT.

Mark joined Colt as Chief Information Officer (CIO) in February 2008 with the responsibility for the management and development of Colt's IT systems. He has extensive experience of IT within the telecoms sector, having held the position of CIO at Vodafone UK, IT Director at NTL, as well as a senior management role at IBM Global Services.

Prior to working in the telecoms sector, Mark worked in senior IT roles in banking and retail.

Paul Musson was appointed EVP, Human Resources with effect from January 2011. Paul has a clear remit to drive the people and performance agenda ‘top down’ across Colt’s business and service units.

Paul recently completed a successful period as Director, People & Organisation Development where he led the implementation, continuous improvement and effective use of the Colt Talent Management system, to support improved performance and career management. He also championed enhancements to our recruitment processes and developed our leadership development programmes. Paul was a key member of the strategic project team supporting the implementation of the new operating model through concept and design to implementation.

Paul has over 22 years’ experience in Human Resources, working at a leadership level, with his last two appointments being corporate roles at global FTSE 100/S&P 250 companies, BAE Systems & Weatherford International.

Paul holds an MSc in People & Organisation Development from the University of Sussex.

Richard Oosterom was appointed EVP, Group Strategy & Business Development in January 2011.  Richard is responsible for the wider Colt strategy and the execution of strategic initiatives within Colt’s business plans.

Previously he was Managing Director, Business Process Outsourcing. Prior to this, Richard spent two years as the MD in Germany, and has held a number of senior management positions including head of Major Business and head of Sales Operations and Support. He joined Colt in 2002 as MD Colt Benelux.

Before Colt, Richard worked in the IT industry for companies including Cap Gemini and EDS.

Caroline Griffin Pain was appointed Company Secretary in April 2005.

Caroline joined Colt from a Reuters joint venture, Radianz, where she was Company Secretary having previously held senior management positions at Antfactory and Rea Brothers Group plc where she was General Counsel.

Andrew Powell was appointed COO in January 2011. Andrew is primarily responsible for ensuring that we "operationalise" Colt’s new operating model, leading alignment across both the business and service units. He is also accountable for the delivery of all internal strategic change that spans the ‘end to end’ Colt business. Andrew has held several key senior leadership roles at Colt prior to stepping into the COO role.
 
Previously he was Managing Director, Human Resources. Andrew’s responsibilities included leadership of People & Change function and driving the people and performance agenda across Colt. Before moving to Human Resources, Andrew was Managing Director of our Operations business, responsible for the Colt customer experience from order to service support. Prior to this he was Managing Director of Colt’s Major Enterprise Division, Colt’s largest trading entity.  Andrew joined Colt in October 2006 as head of Colt Professional Services leading the European Professional Services Transformation programme.
 
Prior to his career at Colt, Andrew held a number of Executive leadership roles across varied market verticals working primarily in private and venture capital investment.
 
Andrew started his career in the British military where he spent twelve years with the Royal Signals as an Electronic Engineer and five years serving with the Special Forces.

Carl Robertson was appointed Chief Marketing Officer, in January 2010.  In addition to the CMO role Carl is also responsible for CES Marketing, effective from January 2011.

Carl joined Colt in October 2007 as Director of Marketing and Product for the SME Division and was responsible for establishing Colt as a leading provider of advanced ICT services to SMEs across Europe. Key responsibilities included transforming the partner community and developing a new digital channel to market.

Carl moved to Colt from Orange where he held a number of senior sales and marketing positions covering the residential, SME and MNC markets. As Director of Marketing and Sales programmes at Orange Business Services he was responsible for driving the services transformation. Carl also held positions at Equant, including Head of Global Sales Strategy and Director of Global Product Marketing.

Carl achieved a BSc in Managerial & Administrative Studies from Aston University in the UK.

Simon Walsh joined Colt as Executive Vice President in February 2011. His responsibilities include leadership of the Enterprise Services business unit across Europe, including customer relationships, strategic development and overall commercial accountability of the P&L.

Previously Simon was the UK Managing Director and member of the Board of Computacenter UK Ltd and also the Group Executive Committee. He brings a wealth of senior level experience, significant commercial know-how and a proven track record in business transformation.

Simon has participated in various executive development programmes, including studying at Harvard Business School. Simon is married with two sons and is keen on sport, particularly squash and sailing.