Spectrum recruits Tom Alexander as Chairman, and the executive management team at mobile client Viacloud

On 2nd October 2013, Spectrum client Viacloud UK Holdings Limited (Viacloud) confirmed that Tom Alexander has been appointed as Non-Executive Chairman.

Viacloud’s announcement marks Mr. Alexander’s long anticipated return to the mobile industry, and a tremendous coup for Viacloud. His appointment is also the culmination of Spectrum’s work for Stratum, the Bahrain-based private equity firm behind Viacloud, during which we also recruited Viacloud’s executive management team: described by telecoms.com as “heavy hitters”.

Previously, Tom Alexander was Chief Executive at Everything Everywhere, but is perhaps best known as the founder and CEO of Virgin Mobile, the UK’s most successful new-entrant mobile service provider. In 1998, Mr Alexander persuaded Sir Richard Branson to back his plan for a consumer-friendly mobile brand, creating Virgin Mobile, the world’s first Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). In 2004, the company floated for £500m and was later sold to NTL in 2006 for nearly £1bn, as part of a complex deal that united the UK’s two largest cable operators into Virgin Media.

Viacloud is a London-headquartered mobile service provider with Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE) and Mobile Virtual Network Aggregator (MVNA) solutions, which enable MVNOs and leading brands to launch consumer propositions in the UK. This service is enabled by the Viacloud platform, which is deeply integrated with EE’s radio access network and NSN technology. Viacloud’s infrastructure supports up to seven million customers – with billing, customer support and network management all provided – and has been the result of significant technical investment by Stratum: leading ‘Light Reading’ to describe Viacloud as possessing a “unique capability among MVNAs”.

As Non-Executive Chairman, Mr. Alexander will provide his unique leadership experience in the mobile industry to Viacloud, as it continues its commercial expansion. He said: “I’ve been particularly interested in Viacloud, as the company is now very well placed to help enable new MVNOs to address the mobile market. MVNOs have been extremely important in developing the consumer market over the past few years and this will continue through to the next phase, especially in the growth of mobile data and 4G. Consumer brands, content players and segmented routes to market are all key.”

Mr. Alexander will join Viacloud’s executive team – which was also recruited by Spectrum earlier this year, as the company moved from a technology development programme into its commercial phase – including: Chief Executive Emanuele Angelidis, who made his name at Fastweb, an Italian quad-play start-up that IPO’d at a €7bn market valuation; Chief Commercial Officer Tim Stone who, as Director of Business Development & Wholesale led a five-fold increase in mobile wholesale revenue at Vodafone UK; and Chief Financial Officer Richard Schafer, who has held various senior finance roles at Vodafone UK, and at Three UK (3) in its start-up phase.

Ahmed Alumran, Managing Partner at Stratum, commented: “We are delighted that Tom has chosen to join Viacloud as Non-Executive Chairman. It is a tremendous endorsement of our business, and he will now be instrumental – along with the executive management team – in fully realising the commercial potential that exists for Viacloud.”

This activity coincides with the publication in July of a report from research firm Informa Telecoms & Media, which calculated that MVNOs can be hugely profitable for mobile network operators with margins exceeding 50 per cent, comparing very favourably with their own retail operations, which produce margins close to 25 per cent. Informa calculates that MVNOs in the UK generate £900m to £950m annual revenue for mobile operators, and profits of £400m to £450m.

Daniel Osmer, Managing Partner at Spectrum said: “We have been privileged to work for Stratum, an actively involved and supportive investor, and it is tremendously satisfying for us to have successfully recruited Viacloud’s executive management team, and now it’s Non-Executive Chairman.”

Read Spectrum’s Viacloud Case Study.