Energis appoints new CFO

If he wants to get on, he better get a hat

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Telecoms, 7th December 2004 09:22 GMT

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Energis has a new chief financial officer after Eamonn O'Hare decided to quit the UK telco and "move on to his next challenge".

An Energis board member since 2002, O'Hare joined the company three months after a consortium of banks bought the ailing telco which had debts of almost £700m. Since then he's helped steer the company into slightly less choppy waters with the telco running up its first operating profit in 2003/04 of £10m. O'Hare is to be replaced by Steve Cooke, who joined Energis last year from DIY chain B&Q.

In response to recent downbeat reports about Energis performance, CEO John Pluthero said: "I wear my hat at a jaunty angle; with £500 million of contract wins over the last three months and over 20 per cent growth in corporate business - why shouldn't I?"

Pluthero has a fondness for hat-related idioms to get his message across. In 2001, when he was boss of Freeserve (now Wanadoo UK), he said at the launch of the ISP's unmetered dial-up service: "By offering internet users the best deals around on Internet call charges supported by dedicated network and customer service, not for the first time Freeserve competitors have been knocked into a cocked hat."

As Reg readers are well aware, this 200-year-old saying means to give someone a good beating.

Pluthero, spotted on Friday sporting a Trilby, is understood to be already working on his next hat-related quote. ®