Commercial Manager – Origin Broadband at TALKTALK GROUP (2022-08 – 2025-10)
Delivered commercial responsibilities for Origin Broadband, a consumer business 130,000 customers and annual turnover of £33m. Accountable for product propositions and pricing, base management, trading, collaborating with operations, key stakeholders and managing suppliers to deliver low-cost operations with a focus on digital and automation of processes towards simplification.
Key Contributions
- Supported the commercial strategy and customer communication rebrand from OVO to Origin post-acquisition facilitating TalkTalk to save £12m in working capital in 2022 vs. organic trading, enabling TalkTalk to achieve connection volume commitments made to Openreach
- Accountable for product propositions, pricing and trading, collaborating with operations and key stakeholders to optimize performance and maintain margin integrity
- Implemented 'out of contract' Customer Price Rise in 2023 generating an incremental £104k EBITDA per year
- Delivered the implementation of paper billing charges generating c£90k incremental revenue per month
- Improved EDITDA by 4% in 2024 with a new pricing strategy to mitigate increases in wholesale costs
- Led and launched implementation of regulatory Contract Summary and Contract Information including customer journey amendments, IT system updates and customer communication process and copy
- Represented Commercial and Product for the regulatory 'One Touch Switching' project covering all customer communications, gaining and losing journeys, online and offline customer touchpoints
- Supplier relationship owner, Microsoft Dynamics365 & Medius ERP systems user, responsible for onboarding new suppliers, securing funding, purchase orders, goods receipting, internal costs controls and supplier payments • Launched new card payment system, from supplier onboarding to contract sign off and service implementation • Supported a transformation programme to streamline and simplify the operating model through the merger of Origin and OVO in to one business under one brand, IT stack and operating model
- Managed tariff and product rationalisation to align 3 separate legal entities onto one simplified product and pricing structure
- Supporting rebranding activities from OVO to Origin Broadband for all customer contact points • Collaborated to relaunch sales acquisition on a trial basis utilising Telesales, Price Comparison sites and Organics to generate 30% of all weekly sales within the Talk Talk group within 6 weeks, demonstrating sales volumes at commercially acceptable ROI
Commercial Performance Manager at SSE & OVO TELECOMS (2018-10 – 2022-08)
Commercial and performance management for SSE & OVO Telecoms, a consumer business within the energy groups. Accountable for the P&L, product propositions and pricing, commercial performance, go to market channel management, value added growth, call centre liaison and regulatory reporting.
Key Contributions
- Commercial planning, forecasting, budgeting, and tracking of KPIs in a B2C environment
- Developing and delivering pricing and proposition strategies whilst monitoring and analysing commercial performance to achieve targets, exceeding budgets in 2019 through 2022
- Coordination of sales, retention, and marketing channels and teams to deliver commercial strategies whilst concentrating on 'best value' options resulting in improved return on investment
- Managing all commercial product models, including churn, sales, losses, payback and margins • Collaborated to launch the markets' first Energy and Broadband bundle, achieving 25% penetration rate of all recontracting energy customers within 2 months • Launched tariff refreshes, from scoping, modelling, business cases, through to briefing and training packs, testing and customer comms proofing
- Assumed responsibility for all P&L for OVO Telecoms. Focus on revenues to COGS and OPEX, achieving £2.2m positive EBITDA variance in 2022 vs. budget through P&L management
- Negotiation of wholesale supplier contracts & pricing resulting in best in market wholesale rates resulting in new propositions to launch FTTP, SOGEA & VoIP technologies to market
- Led on End of Contract regulatory communications introduction and associated pricing methodologies, resulting in optimised product pricing presentation to customer and improved retention rates • Commercial lead on launch of new sales order provisioning platform & billing platform including signoff on all journeys adopting automation and streamlining multiple manual processes
- Implemented Digital Marketing Paid Search activities during 2021 meeting sales acquisition targets • Responsibility for regulatory reporting and compliance improvements
- Negotiated and launched Tili third party reseller channel and managing commission to 3rd party sales channels • Supported rebranding activities from SSE to OVO for all customer communications The AA (2008-01 – 2018-05)
Insurance Marketing Acquisition Manager
Led a team of 3 marketers to deliver and exceed customer acquisition volume and value targets for Home, Motor & Travel Insurance whilst also being the Commercial Relationship Manager for Price Comparison Websites.
Key Contributions
- Development and evolution of effective customer segmentation and targeted tactical campaigns resulting in highly optimised channel performance costing in within 2.5yr payback period for insurance products
- Re-energised external Price Comparison Website (PCW) partnerships, conducting quarterly and annual commercial reviews and contractual renewal negotiations ensuring commercial and trading performance targets achieved • Improved DM performance through continued test and learn approach and greater personalisation resulting in consistently achieving sub £20 cost per sale with customer response rates in excess of 5%
- Grew E-Mail open rates and click through rates by 32% & 75% respectively through application of best practices
- Delivered target sales volumes through direct marketing channels including direct mail, e-mail, press, directories, price comparison websites and display advertising activities for Home, Motor & Travel Insurance
- Reviewed, simplified and reduced printed stock variants resulting in saving over £150k to ensure budgets achieved
- Commercial liaison with call centre, driving tactics and offers which resulted in achieving cross sale targets in excess of 30k sales
- Spearheaded and orchestrated monthly Risk & Customer Complaints forums for AA Insurance division, acting as Complaints Champion to ensure constant analysis and oversight of complaints, trends and root cause analysis • Co-ordinated with customer insight and group marketing teams to ensure the successful and efficient execution of new business marketing strategies through specific customer targeting, data modelling and performance analysis
- Forecasting of call centre new business performance metrics and new business mailing & call volumes
Senior Marketing Coordinator
Day to day management, development and implementation of direct marketing campaigns for the B2C Manufacturer Conversion programme to deliver and exceed membership acquisition targets.
Key Contributions
- End to end co-ordination between in-house data, creative and fulfilment teams to implement and deliver the direct mail programmes on schedule and within cost budget
- Tactical creative and copy testing. Production of results analysis and recommendations for future actions which improved effectiveness of campaigns by 10%
- Development, management, and analysis on all trading and performance KPI's including calls and sales forecasting, budgets and reconciliation of all expenditure and invoices for third party suppliers
- Liaising with key stakeholders within and external to the business to ensure calls, sales and profit targets were achieved within budget
Affinity & Partnership Marketing Executive
Employee Benefit Scheme B2B product and pricing propositions and third-party business arrangements.
Key Contributions
- Successful negotiation, launch and management of new commercial partnerships with Arval, Coverbox & Direct Choice resulting in 85% increase vs sales budget in 2009 & a 49% increase in 2008
- Represented brand and attended multiple employee benefit events for service promotion • Introduction of pricing trials and short-term tactical promotions with employee benefit providers
- Full analysis of customer base, competitors, literature, pricing and communication channels
Other Experience
B2B Marketing Manager at Shuttercraft (2006 – 2007) Business Owner at Just in Thyme Garden Design (2002 – 2006) Account Manager / Regional Business Manager at Ericsson (1997– 2002)
