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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Mark Sweney

‘Smart operator’: how BT’s first female CEO helped turn company around

A woman wearing black gestures with her hands while speaking in front of a purple-blue background.
Allison Kirkby took home £5.6m in pay and bonuses last year. Photograph: Lluís Gené/AFP/Getty Images

If timing is everything, then Allison Kirkby may have judged it perfectly.

Since becoming BT’s first female chief executive more than two years ago the company’s share price has climbed 80%, an investor-pleasing turnaround that has seen Kirkby well-rewarded with a pay and bonus package of £5.6m last year, the largest for a boss of the telecoms company in well over a decade. However, there are questions over how much credit Kirkby can take for the apparent revival of the business.

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