The pressure of featuring on all those female-only future high-fliers’ lists hasn’t told on Liv Garfield.
Today’s move marks a good day for boardroom diversity, but should also be admired regardless of gender. The women that have led FTSE firms are members of a small club, but so are those blue-chip chief executives who have got there before the age of 40. Garfield’s new job brings to mind the appointments of James Murdoch and Lord Wolfson to head BSkyB and Next respectively. Both had proven aptitude — and may have benefited a little from their lineage. Garfield’s dad ran a small engineering firm.
The former management consultant’s defection also asks questions of BT in the Gavin Patterson era. Groomed for greatness by Ian, now Lord, Livingston, Garfield is a big loss. Like a Premier League manager, Patterson needs to show BT has enough bench strength for him to shuffle the line-up for battles ahead.
