Key Biographies

Colm O'Neill is Chief Executive Officer of BT in Ireland. Colm joined BT in 2009 as Managing Director for Business, with responsibility for driving the company’s growth in the business and government sectors.

Colm previously worked in EMC for nine years, holding a number of senior management positions across the UK and Ireland, including Country Manager for EMC Ireland. He has also held positions at Fujitsu Services and Price Waterhouse.

Colm graduated from University College Dublin (UCD) with an Honours degree in Computer Science and Maths and a Certified Diploma in Accounting and Finance, and also holds a Diploma in Professional Selling from Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT). Colm is married to Caomhie and has two daughters. His hobbies include music and rugby.

Alex Crossan is Managing Director of Networks for BT on the island of Ireland.

Since joining BT in 1977, Alex has held a wide range of roles in Sales, Computing, Billing, Customer Service and Networks.

Prior to taking up his current role, Alex led the Field Engineering team in Northern Ireland where he managed significant operational and cost transformation programmes. Key achievements include the deployment of Next Generation Access infrastructure across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Alex is married with five children- three sons and two daughters. He is a keen football fan and enjoys spending time with his family.

Gareth McWilliams is Managing Director of Solutions in BT in Ireland. Gareth’s role encompasses the end to end management of the organisation from the service design function to the delivery and service arms supporting the Wholesale and Business Sales Divisions.

Gareth joined BT in 2006 Service Operations Manager for While Label Managed Services in the Wholesale division, and in 2009 he was appointed Director of Customer Service. Prior to that Gareth gained 15 years global business solutions experience with Dun and Bradstreet working in North America, New Zealand and Europe before leaving and moving into the role of Sales Director for Cabletel, followed by the position of Customer Loyalty Director for NTL/Telewest. He holds an MBA from the University of Ulster.

Gareth lives in Holywood, enjoys scuba diving and is a keen MOTO GP enthusiast.

Peter Evans was appointed strategy director for BT in Ireland in 2010. Peter has worked for BT (and formerly Esat) for over 15 years in various technical sales and product management roles. Most recently, Peter was responsible for the development and in-life management of BT’s Business and Wholesale portfolio, including Broadband, Ethernet, MPLS and Voice services.

Peter holds an honours Degree in Electronic Engineering from DCU and a Masters in Business Telecommunications with distinction from UCL, University of London. A keen soccer player, Peter is married with one daughter and lives in Dublin.

Peter Morris is Director, Consumer (North) & Corporate Services, BT Ireland with responsibility for the profit and loss of the Consumer business in Northern Ireland and is also accountable for the success of the Marketing Services, Communications, PR & Public Affairs functions which provide support across the Ireland business.

Peter, a native of Belfast, began his BT career eight years ago. Prior to that he worked for Coca Cola Bottlers (Ulster) and then for Mace (J&J Haslett). For the first two years in BT he was responsible for all marketing into the SME sector before moving on to become Head of Business Marketing. In 2003 Peter became Head of Sales for the SME sector playing a pivotal role in the growth of BT's customer base.

In 2004 Peter was seconded from his role to both formulate and lead the company’s strategy against the growing competitive threat and has played a key role in setting the direction for the company in this business critical area. In June 2006 Peter became Head of Consumer for BT in Northern Ireland with responsibility for driving BT's strategy and services in the Consumer sector.He studied Business and Economics at Queens University, Belfast.

Peter, a keen sports enthusiast, lives in Belfast with his wife Cathy and two children Matthew and Leah.

Shay Walsh is Managing Director of BT Business in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, with responsibility for the company’s business and government customers. Since joining the company (then Esat Telecom) as an engineer in 1995, Shay has held a variety of roles including Head of Operations, Director of Engineering, and Director of Technology, Service and Operations. Most recently Shay was Managing Director of BT Wholesale in Ireland, a high performing division that provides services to the majority of communications companies operating on the island.

Shay has an honours degree in Electronic Engineering from DCU and an MBA from the Michael Smurfit Business School. He is married to Eunice McMenamin and has three children.

Dave has over 20 years experience in Telecommunications and has held a variety of roles including Director of Business Development & Sales, Commercial Manager, Head of Product Development, Client Director and Design Engineer. Dave joined BT in 2001 as Head of Channel Management for the Mobile Sector across Europe and took up his role as Managing Director of BT Ireland Wholesale in Nov 2011. Dave has a degree in Electronic Engineering and a Postgrad qualification in Business Management.

Originally from Edinburgh, Jeff graduated in 1998 with Honours from the University of Glasgow, specialising in Commercial Law and Tax.  He obtained his Diploma in Legal Practice the following year and completed his traineeship at top four Scottish firm McGrigors (now part of Pinsent Masons) in 2001. Jeff then moved to London, where he sat the Law Society conversion exams and became dual qualified, entitled to practise law in Scotland and England and Wales.  Jeff joined what is now the world's largest law firm, DLA Piper, in late 2002 and spent four years in the London Corporate team, specialising in Mergers and Acquisitions.

In late 2006, Jeff joined BT's M&A Legal Team where he spent over five years, latterly as a Team Leader in BT Group’s Major Transactions Team and was responsible for BT Legal’s M&A activity globally.

Jeff is married to Suzy and they have one son, Jack.  Jeff is a keen sports enthusiast and particularly enjoys golf, rugby and football.

Conal is responsible for building the BT Infinity brand and driving all broadband take-up. He works to retain and grow BT’s consumer base in Northern Ireland, and the rollout of next generation entertainment through new initiatives including Youview, multicast and BT Sports.

Since his BT career began over 19 years, Conal has held many roles in network engineering, sales channels, business improvement and business planning. Prior to his current role Conal was head of consumer sales for BT Northern Ireland, responsible for leading all inbound and outbound sales teams, providing a strong foundation for his current role.
Conal holds an honours Degree in Business from University of Ulster. Conal, a keen golfer lives in Belfast with his wife Julie and  has enough to keep him  busy outside the office with their two young children Caolan and Gemma.

Originally from Belfast, Fiona graduated from Queen’s University in 1997 with a joint honours in Business Studies and French. Following this she went on to do her Masters in Business Management at the University of Ulster.

Following this Fiona joined GE on their Global Graduate Programme and moved to London. After graduating from this she joined the Consumer Finance section of GE in a variety of consumer and HR roles, specialising in Change Management as a Master black belt in their Six-sigma team.

Fiona moved back to Belfast in 2004 with her husband Graham and joined BT as a HR Business Partner for Sales and Solutions. Since then Fiona has had a variety of HR Partnering and Programme management roles covering the majority of areas in BT Ireland. Fiona was appointed HR Director in 2010.