If you followed the London stock market in the mid-2010s, you couldn't escape the name Gavin Patterson. He wasn’t your typical "suits and spreadsheets" BT boss. He was different. While his predecessors often felt like they were still running a privatized branch of the Post Office, Patterson brought a flash of Procter & Gamble marketing energy to the boardroom. For a while, it worked. The shares hit nearly 500p, and BT was suddenly cool—or as cool as a telecom giant can be—because it was taking the fight to Sky.
But then, it all kinda fell apart.
Looking back at the BT Group and Gavin Patterson era, it’s a story of massive, high-stakes bets that eventually hit a wall of shareholder impatience. People often simplify his exit as just "poor performance," but the reality is way more nuanced. It was a clash between a vision of BT as a media powerhouse and the harsh reality of a company that needed to spend billions just to keep its copper wires from rotting.
The BT Sport Gamble: Genius or Distraction?
In 2013, Patterson stepped into the CEO role and immediately did something that made the industry gasp. He launched BT Sport. This wasn't just some small add-on service. He went after the Premier League. Honestly, it was a "go big or go home" moment. He spent billions on football rights, snatching the Champions League away from ITV and Sky in a £900 million raid that left competitors reeling.
The strategy was simple: stop people from leaving BT broadband by giving them free football.
For a few years, it looked like a masterstroke. BT wasn't just a utility anymore; it was a broadcaster. But there’s a catch with sports rights—they’re like a treadmill that keeps getting faster and more expensive. Every few years, you have to bid again, and the price almost always goes up. Eventually, investors started asking why a phone company was spending £1 billion a year on "men kicking balls" (as some critics put it) when the UK’s fiber infrastructure was lagging behind.
The EE Acquisition and the Italian Job
One of Patterson's biggest wins was the £15 billion deal to buy EE. It was a massive move. It turned BT into a truly "converged" operator, meaning they could sell you your home phone, your broadband, your TV, and your mobile data in one bundle. Strategically, it was the right call. Even today, EE remains the crown jewel of the BT Group portfolio.
However, just as the EE deal was settling, the "Italian Job" happened.
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In 2017, a massive accounting scandal at BT’s Italian division blew an £8 billion hole in the company's market value. It was a disaster. While Patterson wasn't personally accused of wrongdoing in Italy, it happened on his watch. It shattered the image of a tightly run ship. Suddenly, the "flamboyant marketer" label, which had been a compliment during the good years, became a weapon used against him. Critics argued he was too focused on the shiny world of TV and not enough on the "boring" bits like auditing and infrastructure.
Why the Board Finally Called Time
The end didn't happen all at once. It was a slow drip of frustration. By 2018, the share price had slid to a six-year low. Patterson tried to pivot, announcing a brutal restructuring plan that involved cutting 13,000 jobs—mostly back-office and middle management—and moving BT out of its iconic St. Paul's headquarters where it had been for 150 years.
He knew the company was "too complex and overweight." He said it himself.
But the market had lost faith. When it was revealed he was still taking a £1.5 million bonus despite the job cuts and the share price slump, the backlash was intense. Chairman Jan du Plessis, who had originally backed the plan, eventually realized that while the strategy might be okay, the "messenger" was no longer working. By early 2019, Philip Jansen was brought in to clean up, and Patterson was out.
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Life After BT: The Salesforce Pivot
If you think Patterson disappeared, you’ve got him wrong. He landed on his feet at Salesforce. He spent a few years as President and Chief Revenue Officer there, helping them through a massive growth spurt during the pandemic. It’s funny, actually—at Salesforce, his "marketing-first" energy was exactly what they wanted. He wasn't the guy responsible for the plumbing anymore; he was the guy driving the growth.
He eventually stepped down from Salesforce in 2023 and has since moved into the "portfolio" stage of his career. He’s chaired Octopus Energy, advised tech startups, and sat on various boards. It seems he’s found his "mojo" again away from the relentless pressure of a UK public utility.
What Can We Learn from the Patterson Tenure?
The BT Group Gavin Patterson years are a case study in "Strategic Overreach." You can't just be a visionary; you have to be a custodian of the basics.
- Convergence is king, but expensive: Buying EE was smart. Buying the Premier League was bold. Doing both at the same time while ignoring the regulator (Ofcom) for too long over the separation of Openreach was a recipe for a headache.
- Infrastructure always wins: BT's current CEO, Allison Kirkby (and Jansen before her), have had to spend the last several years playing catch-up on full-fiber rollouts. Patterson’s delay in "digging the trenches" is still felt today.
- Public perception matters: You can’t announce 13,000 job cuts and take a multi-million-pound bonus in the same month. It doesn't matter how well you've "transformed the brand"; you'll lose the room every time.
Real-World Takeaways for Business Leaders
If you're looking for the "so what" in all this, basically it's about balance. If you're running a legacy business, you have to innovate, but you can't let the core engine smoke while you're painting the car. To apply this to your own strategy, you should:
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- Audit your "Distraction Projects": Are you spending 80% of your energy on the 20% of your business that looks "cool" but doesn't pay the bills?
- Fix the Culture Before the Brand: The Italian scandal showed that a flashy headquarters and a great TV ad can't hide deep-seated operational issues.
- Manage Your Exit Before You Have To: Patterson’s 13,000-job cut plan was actually the right move for the business, but he waited so long to do it that he didn't get to see it through. If you know a tough change is coming, start it a year earlier than you think you should.
The BT story has moved on. The company is now much more focused on 5G and fiber than on competing with Netflix or Sky. But the "Patterson era" will always be remembered as the time when BT tried to be more than just a phone company—and learned just how expensive that ambition can be.