– UK, Reading – Thames Water Utilities Limited (LON: WATH) today announced the appointment of Sarah Bentley as CEO, effective this autumn.
During her time at Severn Trent, Sarah has been the chief customer officer responsible for customer retail and network operations, group technology and transformation.
“Sarah has invaluable experience in the water sector and has demonstrated an outstanding ability to innovate and meet customer needs in a regulated environment. This is a critical time for the company, and alongside her passion for customers, Sarah is clearly the perfect person to lead our multi-billion pound investment programme and develop our longer term strategy to ensure resilient water and waste service for generations to come,” said Ian Marchant, interim executive chairman.
He added: “Our board has conducted a thorough search to find the best candidate to fill this important role, and we’re delighted to have secured someone of Sarah’s calibre. Her natural ability to inspire and motivate customer-facing teams will ensure that our collective focus is always on delivering for our customers regardless of the circumstances we face, not least those we’re all experiencing today.
Ian Marchant will continue in his position as interim executive chairman until Sarah joins the company, at which point he will revert back to his role as chairman of Thames Water.
About Sarah Bentley
Among her achievements, Sarah led the transformation of Severn Trent’s digital customer experience, as well as delivering a fundamental shift in the company’s leakage performance – leading to significant improvements in customer satisfaction.
Before Severn Trent, Sarah was managing director of Accenture’s digital business unit in the UK & Ireland, delivering digital transformation programmes to a range of large consumer-facing businesses. Prior to this she worked internationally in a number of roles, including CEO of Datapoint, a private equity-backed company delivering customer relationship management services.
Sarah said: “Firstly I want to thank everyone across the water and wastewater sector for their absolute dedication and service in these challenging times. I am delighted to be joining Thames Water, a business that clearly plays an essential role in London and the Thames Valley and which has such a strong sense of public value. I look forward to working with the team to deliver a service that delights our customers, create a company where our colleagues are proud to work and build a business that is recognised for making a positive contribution to the communities we serve and the environment around us.”
Sarah joined Severn Trent plc in 2014 as chief customer officer and is a member of the executive committee. Severn Trent is a UK FTSE 100 company serving 8 million customers with water and wastewater services across the Midlands. She leads both the consumer retail division and the wholesale network operations unit alongside her responsibilities as group CIO.
Before joining Severn Trent, Sarah was the managing partner for Accenture’s digital business unit in the UK & Ireland delivering digital transformation programs to a range of large UK consumer-facing businesses and was a member of the Accenture UK and Ireland executive committee.
Sarah previously worked internationally in a number of roles including strategy, marketing and propositions for BT’s Global Services division, CEO of Datapoint, an Alchemy-backed company delivering customer relationship management services throughout Europe, and senior vice president of eLoyalty, a global CRM and marketing consultancy. She was SVP of the European business, led the sales and operations activity in North America and ran eLoyalty Ventures L.L.C. working in Silicon Valley, Austin and New York.
She graduated from the University of Kent with a first-class honours degree in management science and computing (BSc Hons) and is married with five children. Sarah is also a non-executive director of Lloyds Bank plc and Bank of Scotland plc and director and secretary of Twizzletwig Limited.
About Thames Water
Thames Water is the UK’s biggest water and wastewater services provider. Our key workers provide essential services around the clock to 15 million customers across London, the Thames Valley and surrounding areas.
For an average of just over £1 a day for our households, we provide 2.7 billion litres of drinking water and safely remove 4.4 billion litres of wastewater every day.
We invested more than £1 billion again in 2019/20, leading to a total of £15 billion in the past 15 years, and we will continue to spend wisely on improving resilience, service and efficiency, as well as provide more support for customers in vulnerable circumstances.
We also have additional responsibilities to society and the natural environment. What we do and how we do it delivers significant public value, which is why we have ambitious plans to self-generate more of our own power, reduce our carbon emissions and increase biodiversity across our sites.
For more information: https://www.thameswater.co.uk
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