Succeeding Jan du Plessis who in March announced plans to retire this year, after a rumoured falling out with BT CEO Philip Jansen.
According to sources, Crozier has unofficially been named as the new chair and in the new role with leverage his vast years of experience.
Between 1988 to 2000 Crozier worked for Saatchi & Saatchi most notably as its co-CEO with Tamara Ingram in 1995. He has also served as chief executive of The Football Association from 2000 to 2002, before being appointed as chief executive of the Royal Mail Group in February 2003. By January 2010 he left the Royal Mail Group to become chief executive of ITV plc and position he held until 2017.
Since then he has served as chairman of restaurant and hotel company, Whitbread as well as online fast-fashion retailer ASOS and Kantar, the market research company, for which its chief executive is Chris Jansen, the brother of BT's Philip Jansen.
This is all in addition to Crozier also previously holding non-executive directorships at Stage Entertainment BV, G4S plc, Debenhams plc and Camelot Group plc.
In a statement, a BT spokesman said that the hiring process for a new chairman was not complete “and we do not comment on ongoing board matters”.
The news follows Patrick Drahi’s Next Alt S.à r.l, through its subsidiary Altice UK, purchasing a 12% stake in BT for approximately £2.2 billion ($3.1 billion). As such Altice UK and by extension Drahi as BT’s biggest shareholder with the acquisition of 1.2 billion shares.
The company has also staved off a number of takeover bids with rumours that a £15 billion buy out was on the cards last year following the Group suspension of its 2019/20 final dividend and all dividends for 2020/21, back in May due to due to the impact of Covid-19.
