The words “safe pair of hands” and “shoo-in” were still echoing when Ian Livingston, then newly appointed as BT’s chief executive, delivered a nasty surprise to the telecoms group’s investors last year.
The amiable, fast-talking Scotsman revealed that the group’s global services division, which had been promoted by Ben Verwaayen, his predecessor, as a jewel in the crown, was, in reality, more of a poisoned chalice.
Far from “continuing BT’s proven strategy”, Mr Livingston’s job, it turned out, would be to rip up the business plan. He would have to start from scratch as he struggled to get a grip on a division that for some time, it emerged, had underpriced contracts and overestimated the cost savings that it could make.
Since then, the BT story has been anything but predictable, involving large job cuts — 15,000 in the past year, with a further 15,000 planned for the next 12 months — and a swing to a £134 million full-year loss, compared with a pre-tax profit the previous year of £1.976 billion.
The turbulent period marks a rare setback for Mr Livingston, 43, who is among a roll call of high-flying executives to have graduated from Dixons, the retail group built up by Stanley (now Lord) Kalms. At 33 Mr Livingston was appointed group finance director of Dixons, a move that famously made him the youngest finance chief of any FTSE 100 company. He joined BT in 2002 as group finance director. Two years later, the departure of Pierre Danon saw him parachuted into another top role, as head of the retail division. As well as Dixons and BT, his CV includes stints at Arthur Andersen, where he was an accountant for three years, and 3i, the private equity company.
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The devoted Celtic fan — the tactics of Tony Mowbray, the football club’s manager, are as much a focus for him as BT’s broadband sales — agreed to join the telecoms group only when Mr Verwaayen was moved into place.
He met him, he has said, and could see “we had a common view about life and a shared philosophy”. Throughout the past turbulent months he has tellingly refused to off-lay blame on to his predecessor.
Mr Livingston is the youngest of four children and has two children of his own, in their late teens. He comes from Glasgow, where his father was a GP, and had only just turned 17 when he went to Manchester University to read economics. Last year he was offered a seat on Celtic’s board and this is now his main professional interest outside BT.