Tristia Harrison, the former boss of TalkTalk, is leaving the company after six years. The troubled telecoms firm is bracing for a split.
Ms Harrison will step down as CEO in early 2019 due to a plan of dividing the company into three.
She will be the head of a new board which will oversee the division of TalkTalk’s consumer, business, and wholesale divisions.
The separation is expected to take place by March when Ms Harrison takes up a position on the Board of Platform X, the wholesale unit.
Her departure highlights a turbulent period for TalkTalk. The company was spun-off from Carphone Warehouse in 2010 by Sir Charles Dunstone.
The company is suffering under a £1.1bn pile of debt , and its bond yields are at distressed levels. A costly refinancing early next year looms.
TalkTalk’s business-to-business unit has been put up for sale to raise capital. Analysts estimate that the sale of this division could bring in £150m.
The process was hampered by the failure of talks at a late stage with Sky. Daisy Group, founded by Matthew Riley, an entrepreneur, is thought to be in the lead.
TalkTalk wants to close the deal by the end the year. It may also explore similar deals or investments for its consumer division, and sell a share in the wholesale platform.
TalkTalk will make 50 to 60 redundancies due to the split, and the company intends to reduce its marketing and sales spend by 40% to improve its balance sheet.
In a difficult broadband market, the move has already had its impact as the company lost 10,000 customers just in the second quarter.
Sir Charles said that the company was “very excited” by the potential of the split group. TalkTalk argues it will focus on quality and not quantity.
James Ratzer is an analyst with New Street. He said he was sceptical of the wholesale platform that sells access networks such as BT’s Openreach or Cityfibre. He said: “I still think that the business is in a tough place.”
Tom O’Hagan will lead TalkTalk’s wholesale platform. He was the founder of Virtual1, a company that TalkTalk acquired last year. Adam Dunlop will be the new chief executive for TalkTalk Direct’s consumer division. He was previously managing director at TalkTalk Direct.