LONDON -- BT today announced that Liv Garfield is to step down as CEO of Openreach during Spring next year. Liv has decided to take up a new challenge as CEO of Severn Trent, the FTSE 100 water company.

As CEO of Openreach – BT’s local access network division – Liv has overseen BT’s £2.5bn commercial roll-out of fibre broadband, which is transforming the lives of households and businesses across the country. She played a pivotal role in building the business case for BT’s commercial fibre investment in her previous role as BT’s Group Strategy Director.

Since Liv assumed the Openreach position in April 2011, the availability of fibre over BT’s network has risen from around 4m premises to more than 17m. Meanwhile, the number of customers adopting fibre has increased steadily from just over 100k in April 2011 to more than 2m subscribers today.

During Liv’s tenure Local Loop Unbundling – where other operators effectively rent a copper line from Openreach - has also gone from strength to strength. In April 2011 the number of unbundled lines in the UK stood at 7.6m. That number has grown to around 9m today. This demonstrates plenty of healthy competition in the UK phone and broadband market as a result of the Openreach model.

Liv’s successor will be announced by BT in due course.

BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA)