Business
Telefonica and Liberty Global announce CEO and CFO for proposed UK joint venture between O2 and Virgin Media
Lutz Schüler to be appointed Chief Executive Officer and Patricia Cobian to be appointed Chief Financial Officer of the combined company upon completion of
About this update from Liberty Global Ltd.
[{"type":"text","content":"\nLutz Schüler to be appointed Chief Executive Officer and Patricia Cobian to be appointed Chief Financial Officer of the combined company upon completion of the transaction \n\n MADRID, Spain and DENVER, Colorado--(BUSINESS WIRE)--\nLiberty Global and Telefonica today announced their intention to appoint Lutz Schüler as Chief Executive Officer and Patricia Cobian as Chief Financial Officer of the proposed 50-50 joint venture combining Virgin Media and O2. The merger is subject to approval by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK.\n\nLutz Schüler joined Virgin Media in 2018 as Chief Operating Officer and has been CEO at Virgin Media since June 2019. Prior to that, Schüler spent more than seven years as CEO of Unitymedia GmbH, Liberty Global’s highly successful German operation, which was sold to Vodafone in 2018. During his tenure at Virgin Media he has transformed business performance with the acceleration of 1 Gig broadband, the rollout of new entertainment and smart WiFi services and the market’s first fixed-mobile bundles. Schüler is a 27-year veteran of the telecoms industry, beginning his career at T-Mobile Deutschland in 1994 and later serving in various senior management roles, including Chief Operating Officer, with Telefonica’s O2 German subsidiary from 1998 to 2010.\n\nPatricia Cobian is currently Chief Financial Officer for O2, a position she has held since 2016. During a 15-year career with Telefonica she has held a number of senior management positions. Before taking on her current role, Cobian was Director for Business Development in Telefonica Europe, where she led strategy, marketing innovation and played a key role in a number of partnerships, spectrum auctions, infrastructure sharing deals and key acquisitions and divestitures in the region. She also led the post-merger integration planning of Telefonica Deutschland with ePlus. Before joining Telefonica, Cobian was a consultant with the TMT and Corporate Finance practices of McKinsey & Company.\n\nMike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global, and José Maria Alvarez-Pallete Lopez, CEO of Telefonica, commented: “We are about to embark on an exciting new chapter for Virgin Media and O2, and Lutz and Patricia are the right leaders to deliver on our ambition to create the UK’s national connectivity champion. Together they will build a strong, diverse and dynam...