Photo: Liv Garfield leaves BT to join Severn Trent
Severn Trent has appointed Liv Garfield to its new Chief Executive. Her appointment boosts the number of female FTSE100 bosses to four. She will also be one of the youngest FTSE chief executives.
Her background is certainly not in water, she read languages at Cambridge before starting her career by joining Accenture as a management consultant. Ms Garfield joined BT in 2003 and has been credited with delivery of the £2.5bn roll-out of fibre broadband which was running 18 months ahead of schedule. She was named in September as one of the top 10 young high flyers in Fortune magasine's annual 40 under 40 list making her the highest ranking Brit in the table.
In the view of the blog this is exactly the sort of imaginative appointment the water industry needs. Its absolutely vital the industry attacks bright, young graduates and especially female staff. Currently the water industry lags far behind many sectors in the number of female staff employed especially in senior positions. Admittedly its not just the water sector that struggles to attract the best graduates. Engineering generally has a huge mountain to climb before it becomes the first choice of graduates male and female.
The water sector is facing huge challenges with climate change and the conflict between the desire of customers to see bills reduce and the need to invest heavily to renew ageing assets. Its only by getting some fresh thinking and the very best joining the industry that a way will be found to resolve these dilemmas.
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