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U.K. network operator moves from capital’s financial centre; hires former Level 3 exec as CMO.
Colt on Tuesday announced it is relocating its headquarters from London’s financial district to the capital’s Tech City.
The new premises, near Silicon Roundabout, puts Colt at the heart of the U.K.’s tech start-ups scene – a big change from banks, lawyers, and financial consultants. It will house the company’s growing staff; Colt is in the process of hiring 300 new sales reps, some of whom will join its 700-strong staff at its new address.
"Colt has made a quarter of a century of investment in the City of London and for evidence of this you don’t have to look any further than in the streets where we have built our fibre," said Colt CEO Carl Grivner, in a statement.
However, times change. "The future is about enabling gigabit speeds and high quality connectivity, across the city, the country and the world," Grivner said.
Colt is in the midst of refocusing on providing high-bandwidth connectivity for companies making the shift to cloud-based storage and applications. In November, the company committed to a system-wide network upgrade to enable it to offer 100-Gbps services to enterprises.
"Our task is to prepare the world for enormously greater need for bandwidth through enabling the digital transformation of business," said Grivner on Tuesday.
The announcement comes a week after Colt named former Level 3 executive Stephanie Lynch-Habib as its chief marketing officer.
Reporting to chief commercial officer Tom Regent, who joined from BT Global Services in September, it will be her job to sell Colt’s new image as an agile provider of multi-gigabit connectivity.
"I believe in the potential for Colt as a disruptive influence and industry leader in terms of high-bandwidth networking and customer experience. But you can only be successful if the teams behind you are the very best, and I recognise a strong leadership and company culture at Colt, which I am keen to be a part of," Lynch-Habib said.
Lynch-Habib will take up her new role on Thursday.
