It would be an exaggeration to say that when Philip Jansen arrived at BT the company was in a mess. But stuck in the mud, for sure.
It was a defensive business, ever complaining about the barriers in its way rather than the opportunities in its future.
Jansen kicked that into touch with a can-do approach that alarmed old-timers, especially when he then went ahead and actually did it.
He suspended dividend payments to investors to help pay for what needed to be done, a brave move at which others may have baulked.
BT is possibly the most important business for the economic success of the entire country. Its connectivity drives everything. Without it, pretty much nothing works.
Privately, Jansen may have occasionally been frustrated at the blocks in his way, not least from politicians who talked big, but moved little (Boris Johnson, I’m just guessing).
But in public, he cracked on, driving BT’s commitment to a full-fibre internet network that might one day be the envy of Europe, fending off regulators who demanded investment at the same time as they clamped down on customer charges.
Along the way he had to deal with more stakeholders, most interested parties, than practically any other CEO. He will have done five years of it by the end, and that’s a decent shift.
Unions who moaned about his pay simply don’t get him. He was already so wealthy that his CEO salary was not the motivation for him getting out of bed every day.
He thought he could make a difference, and did. Jansen will not be easy to replace, as politicians and the BT board are about to find out.
