Former BT Global Services executive Emer Timmons is joining the acquisitive SoftBank group to become chief marketing officer of its mobile device business Brightstar.
Timmons was until last year president of BT Global Services UK, and then become group president for strategic deals and customer engagement.
Brightstar was founded by Marcelo Claure, who two years ago was moved into SoftBank’s US mobile operation, Sprint, as CEO to replace Dan Hesse.
Timmons, who had been with BT since 2006, will be CMO and president of strategic sales, reporting into the group CEO, she told Capacity. “I will be responsible for building and sustaining the Brightstar brand by spearheading the company’s global marketing organisation, from branding through to customer execution.”
She will be working for Jaymin Patel, who was appointed CEO in succession to Claure in early 2015 after a career with lottery company GTech.
Timmons will head Brightstar’s customer-first programme, she told Capacity “and implementing business critical sales strategies and deals with carrier, retail and enterprise customers and prospects across Brightstar’s footprint of 100 countries serving 200 mobile network operators, 40,000 retailers and 15,000 enterprise customers”.
She will remain as a BT group ambassador, she added, and will remain a member of the UK government’s Women’s Business Council.
Brightstar’s revenues are more than $12 billion a year. The formal announcement from the SoftBank group about Timmons’s appointment is expected later this week. SoftBank last week announced a plan to buy UK-based chip designer ARM for £24 billion.
