His role at O2 disappeared on 1 June when the UK operation, which was 100% owned by Telefónica, merged with Virgin Media.
He has been with Telefónica since 2012, initially as CFO of O2 UK, after 11 years at rival operator Vodafone. He became CEO in 2016, succeeding Ronan Dunne, who moved to the US to become CEO of Verizon’s consumer group.
When the merger was completed, Lutz Schüler from Virgin Media became CEO and Patricia Cobian, formerly of O2, became CFO of the newly combined company.
Evans said in a LinkedIn post: “It’s great to now join José María Álvarez-Pallete [chairman and CEO of Telefónica] in a global role. Telefónica is recognised as a world leader in telecommunications, with a presence in 24 markets and nearly 350 million customers.”
Telefónica said Evans, who has a chartered management accounting qualification, was in charge of O2 at “a time at which the business grew to become the UK’s largest mobile provider whilst delivering five years of consecutive profit growth and market leading customer satisfaction”.
It is not clear whether Evans will move to Madrid to the company headquarters in the Distrito Telefónica. His LinkedIn profile still places him in the Reading area west of London.
