BT’s former chief executive Philip Jansen has been awarded his largest pay and bonus package, a £3.7m reward for the same year in which he announced plans to cut 55,000 jobs at the telecoms company by 2030.
The pay deal for Jansen, who was nicknamed Food Bank Phil after the company set up a “community pantry” for call centre staff struggling to make ends meet, was revealed in BT’s latest annual report.
The sum includes a £2.6m bonus for hitting targets linked to profit and cashflow, taking Jansen’s total earnings over five years at the company to £16.8m.
Jansen joined BT in 2019 after reportedly making £50m from the stock market float of payments processing firm Worldpay. Under his stewardship, BT focused much of its efforts on rolling out fast fibre broadband, however the company’s share price also halved during his tenure.
He left the top job at the London-based telecoms company in January this year after announcing his intention to step down in 2023. He remains employed as an adviser until the end of this month.
Thousands of staff are also due to leave BT after Jansen announced sweeping job cuts in May 2023, during the same financial year covered by his latest pay award.
BT said it would become a “leaner business”, reducing its workforce by up to 55,000 by 2030, more than 40% of its global employee base, including about 10,000 jobs replaced by artificial intelligence.
Jansen said at the time that a “big chunk” of the job cuts would be in the UK, where the company is headquartered.
“Philip’s pay last year was not affected by the stated plan to reduce the total number of BT employees over the next seven years,” a company spokesperson said.
BT employs about 130,000 staff globally, with approximately 30,000 of those contractors through third parties, and has about 80,000 staff in the UK.
In 2022, the company was embroiled in a labour dispute with staff over pay, including a series of strikes, during which the Communication Workers Union (CWU) coined the nickname Food Bank Phil.
The name related to claims that BT set up a food bank at a call centre in North Tyneside. BT said it was a “community pantry” for shift workers with no time to go to the shops.
In May last year, BT said it intended to reduce its total workforce to about 75,000-90,000 between 2028 and 2030.
Last month BT disclosed a further £3bn of cost-cutting measures, saying it had peak investment in the rollout of its UK full-fibre broadband network. The company also raised the dividend it pays to investors.
Jansen’s successor as chief executive, Allison Kirkby, has said she will continue with his cost-cutting plans, with the job reduction target unchanged.
A spokesperson said: “Philip’s basic salary stayed flat between the time he joined BT in 2019 and standing down as chief executive earlier this year – but his overall remuneration last financial year was higher, due to stronger performance outcomes against our bonus measures, as well as the fact that two tranches of his long-term share awards vested in [2024].
“A significant proportion of the chief executive’s remuneration is delivered through long-term incentives, where awards are linked to share price movements over the longer term.”
