Openreach boss dreams of a more connected world

Ms Milligan has been based in England since joining BT as a graduate from the University of Strathclyde Business School in 2004.

Having joined Openreach in 2009, she officially took over the post as chairwoman for Scotland from telecoms veteran Brendan Dick last month.

Her arrival in the role, however, has had no bearing on the decision of Openreach to target her home town of Ardrossan as part of its investment to extend ultra-fast broadband across the country. “That was nothing to do with me, I promise you,” she said.

“This is why Openreach has a Scotland board – [it] is making sure we are selecting areas that are right for the community, and balancing [that with ensuring] we don’t just go to the cities everyone else will go to, that are cheaper to build [and] there are more premises.

“That is quite a challenge for us, particularly in Scotland.”

READ MORE: Scott Wright: Are we ready to face another independence debate?

Talking to Ms Milligan, it is clear it has been a hectic year for the broadband infrastructure specialist, which was legally separated from telecoms giant BT in 2018.

Together with its telecoms contemporaries, it has played a crucial role in ensuring people have been able to continue their jobs after being ordered to work from home during the pandemic, and stay connected to friends and family during lockdown. Demand for broadband soared by as much as 70 per cent.

Ms Milligan said Covid sparked radical changes to the way Openreach operates, too, both to ensure it can continue widening its reach of ultra-fast fibre while keeping its engineers safe and protecting its office-based staff. Openreach has 3,200 staff on the ground in Scotland, and is in the process of adding a further 275 to support its continuing introduction. The company says it also supports about 700 jobs in its supply chain.

Ms Milligan said the company is satisfied with its record of supporting homes and businesses amid the pandemic, noting the investment it had made over many years in rolling out super-fast fibre has paid dividends.

“We have now proven it was right to do it, and it held up throughout lockdown,” she said.

“It allowed people to work from home, it allowed people to educate their children, to stay connected to loved ones and… we were able to continue to put in new infrastructure at pace for those who really needed it.

READ MORE: Glasgow student flat construction put on pause by developers

“One of the things that has been really great is that it is not just how Openreach has acted, it is how we have worked together with other industry players to make sure the country was supported for Covid. That has been around vulnerable customers, vaccination centres, you name it.

“There has been an awful lot of learning. It is something no one wants to go through, but as a business it has allowed us to adapt and learn really quickly in how to work in different circumstances.”

Connecting the Highlands and Islands has long been a challenge for the communications industry, amid continuing concern from business

that Scotland will be held back from reaching its potential as long as provision is limited. Moreover, concerns have also been raised that inadequate connectivity could hamper the Covid recovery.

“The ambition of the Government is very clear, that connectivity is at the heart of the economic recovery,” Ms Milligan said. “That is something we all support and believe firmly that having the access to connectivity will fundamentally change folks’ lives.”

She acknowledges the concerns about rural connectivity, observing that the islands require sub-sea cables to be connected to the mainland.

“A lot of that is part of the R100 plan, in terms of connecting up those customers to at least a 30 meg [megabits per second] service,” she said.

“However it is not just rural areas, it can be the odd house that, for some reason, the underlying network just isn’t there. Or it is a house that has never been connected. It is not as simple as you would think – that it is just in a rural area [where gaps are]. That is the challenging of finding solutions that cover all of these not-spots.”

Ms Milligan said Openreach is led by a “balanced build” strategy, “so we are not just going to the most lucrative places like towns and cities.”

The investment is taking place right across the country, from Glasgow and Edinburgh to Kilmarnock and Inverurie, as the company bids to take full-fibre broadband into 90 Scottish towns, cities and villages by the mid-2020s. “We are going to the hardest [to] reach communities, and making sure some of the rural areas – and we have announced a few of them – also get the investment in ultra-fast,” Ms Milligan said.

While Ms Milligan will be spending a lot more of her time in Scotland, she will not be giving up the day job, and will add her responsibilities as 

chairwoman of the Scotland board to her position on the Openreach executive team. That means overseeing £5 billion of products and serves and leads its relationship with a raft of communications providers, such as BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and Zen, which use the Openreach network.

It sounds like a heavy load, but Ms Milligan breaks down the objective into simple terms.

Asked to sum up her priorities are in her new role as chairwoman,

Ms Milligan said: “Better service, broader coverage, faster speeds.”

“There are a number of things that come under that,” she explained. “Really, we need to make sure in Scotland the network that is delivering to towns and cities right across every community holds up and is fit for purpose. As we continue to ease our way out of Covid, we need to make sure we are continuing to do that in a safe way for our people, whether that is in customers’ homes or our offices.”

Looking ahead, she hopes connectivity can bring about a positive change post-pandemic.

“I want the legacy of Covid to actually last,”

Ms Milligan said. “Connectivity enables a different way of working. It doesn’t have to fundamentally change it, but it is additive, and it means there can be subtle changes to the flexibility people have in their career choices, family choices, and if I look at some of the challenges for Scotland, particularly around migration and repopulating some of the rural areas, I think it will be so important.”

Six Questions

What countries have you most enjoyed travelling to, for business or leisure, and why?

I love travelling to Goa in India. It’s a special place where we go often with the Scottish clan and where I’m able to unwind properly. Before lockdown, I went to Tel Aviv and it’s one of the best places I’ve visited.
When you were a child, what was your ideal job? Why did it appeal?
I wanted to be a pharmacist. I would go to work with my aunt at Crosshouse Hospital, Kilmarnock, and she would show me the dispensing and explain how drugs helped people.

What was your biggest break in business? 

It was working as the business manager to the chief executive. The position allowed me to truly understand how a business worked end-to-end and the politics that follow, but the chief executive was selfless in taking the time to really teach me how he made the decisions.

What was your worst moment in business? 

When working on a huge commercial landmark deal for over a year, it became all-consuming and I took on the responsibility of the deal and thus the company financial outlook personally. After the deal, I had to take a step back and reassess my leadership style.

Who do you most admire and why?

My mother. I have never told her so and she will learn reading this. She walked out on a difficult marriage when I was 12. As a Catholic in a small town, the repercussions for her were huge, yet she remained resolute in her decision. As an adult I look back at what she endured to be true to herself. She made the biggest sacrifices to teach her children about self-worth and resilience.

What book are you reading and what music are you listening to? 
I am reading Invisible Women – it’s amazing to learn how the world is built unintentionally for men from a very data-driven perspective. Music-wise, I flip between the Hamilton soundtrack for the gazillionth time 
or Beyonce.