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Openreach: Meet the Team – Kim Mears

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Openreach

Managing Director of Strategic Infrastructure Development, Kim Mears OBE, talks to Business News Wales about Openreach’s work in Wales

Kim Mears is Chair of Openreach Wales Board, which is made up of senior leaders most of who live and work in Wales and help ensure the business is doing the right thing for nation. She also leads the pan-Openreach Fibre First Programme, which has committed to delivering full-fibre broadband to 25m homes by December 2026.

Openreach has 30,000 engineers working across the UK including around 2,500 engineers across every part of Wales.

“And we’re just about to recruit another 250 people to help service existing networks and build new ones,” says Kim. “We also have a wonderful training school in Newport. First Minister Mark Drakeford joined us recently to open it. It’s where we’ll be training all of our new recruits, and continuing to upskill those 2,500 engineers.”

Community is very important to Openreach, says Kim, and it is “important engineers reflect the communities they serve”. “It’s fun, driven and fast,” she adds. “Delivering brilliant customer service is at the heart of what we do.”

Kim is responsible for building strategic and commercial relationships with key stakeholders to win new business and remove barriers, helping Openreach to achieve its ambition to deliver full-fibre to the UK, and to extend its network to reach the final 5%.

Kim has held several positions at BT, including regional director of London Home Counties. She was also the director of next-generation solutions, where she led Openreach's £1.7 billion Broadband UK (BDUK) programme, along with our £2.5 billion next-generation access (NGA) commercial programme.

Before becoming the Managing Director of Strategic Infrastructure Development, Kim was the Managing Director of Infrastructure Delivery, where she was responsible for building fibre across the UK. She was also responsible for delivering superfast broadband speeds to 95% of the country, as well as extending coverage to reach the most rural places in the UK through the BDUK programme.

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Openreach is made up of four divisions – service delivery, fibre and network delivery, strategic infrastructure development, and headquarters.

Our 35,000 people are hugely experienced, resourceful and innovative. They tackle complicated engineering problems – from coordinating works with councils, highways agencies, energy suppliers and landowners, to installing and maintaining the complex kit that provides fibre broadband services. They go the extra mile and take on any challenge to build a better, faster and more affordable network that helps our customers stay connected.

 

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