Former OC&C advisor Toby Robinson new CCO of Avanti Communications
Satellite operator Avanti Communications has appointed industry expert Toby Robinson as its new Chief Commercial Officer. Robinson, who joins from the same role at Eaton Towers, honed his extensive skill-set as a Partner at former Big Five consultancy Arthur Anderson, as well as a Director with strategy consulting firm OC&C, along with a number of other senior positions.
Toby Robinson was most recently the CCO of Eaton Towers, a towers and masts business operating across the continent of Africa. Robinson was also a member of the start-up management team at Eaton Towers, helping to grow the business to 5,000 towers across Africa, handling negotiations with Bharti Airtel and Orange, among others, as part of the group’s acquisitions programme.
Prior to this, Avanti’s new CCO was a TMT specialist consultant at Arthur Andersen, having joined from the Kalachas Group in 1998, where he had been a Partner. Robinson had become a Partner at Arthur Anderson before its de facto dissolution in 2002, following the Enron scandal in the US. Following this, Robinson joined OC&C in 2004, and spent three years at the firm, becoming a Director before departing to Mercator. Robinson spent two years at the telecoms consultancy, becoming Managing Director before leaving in 2014. He is a graduate of Cambridge University and has an MBA from Insead.
Speaking on his latest engagement, Robinson said, “Avanti is a company with market-leading expertise and proven technical excellence and I hope to bring my experience in the sector to bear in helping it grow and perform to its potential. There’s a very strong team here and I believe we can take the business forward in a material way.”
Avanti’s acting CEO Alan Harper added, “This is a new – and vitally important – role at Avanti and we are delighted to have someone of Toby’s experience and track record joining us at this moment in our development.”
Robinson worked with Harper at Eaton Towers, a company that the latter co-founded, and the acting Chief Executive was keen to reference their previous working relationship, saying, “I have known him within the industry for some years and can attest to his technical and industry skill-set, contact base, drive and intelligence. His arrival represents a major vote of confidence in the business, its abilities and its ambitions.”
Harper became acting CEO of Avanti Communications after the company announced that David Williams was "stepping down from the board and leaving the company". Harper, who was strategy director of Vodafone until 10 years ago, is also chairman of Irish fibre company Gigabit and of solar power company Azuri Technologies.
Toby Robinson, meanwhile, is the second OC&C alumnus to be appointed to a high-profile position recently. Michael Jary, the co-founder and a continuing Partner of the firm was named as a Non-Executive Board Member by Barclays, in preparation for the launch of their ring-fenced retail bank, this Autumn. Upon the commencement of the project, Jary will be joined by other boardroom hires including ex-PwC auditor Andrew Ratcliffe, along with Avid Duggan, a senior investment professional at Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Sir John Timpson, owner of UK shoe repair chain Timpson.
