Thames Water CEO Sarah Bentley resigns 'with immediate effect'

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Peter Davison

Sarah Bentley

The CEO of Thames Water, Sarah Bentley, has resigned with immediate effect, it was announced this afternoon (Tuesday).

The Reading-based utilities firm serves 15 million customers in Swindon & Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, and in London.

Alastair Cochran and Cathryn Ross will assume the role of joint interim CEO effective immediately, said the company.

Ian Marchant, Thames Water’s Chairman, said: "I want to thank Sarah for everything she has done since joining the Company in 2020, building a first class executive team and leading the first phase of the turnaround of the company.

"On behalf of everyone at Thames, the board wishes her every success for the future."

Sarah Bentley said: "It has been an honour to take on such a significant challenge, and a privilege to serve Thames Water’s dedicated and inspirational colleagues.

"The foundations of the turnaround that we have laid position the company for future success to improve service for customers and environmental performance.

"I wish everyone involved in the turnaround the very best."

Last month Bentley and CFO Alastair Cochran announced they would forgo any bonus or long-term incentive plan payments for the financial year 2022-2023.

The firm is in the second year of an eight-year turnaround plan to address ageing and deteriorating infrastructure – a legacy of under-investment and poor performance.

Along with other water companies, it has faced criticism for discharging sewage into rivers and onto coastlines.

Last October it was fined more than £50 million after missing targets such as water supply interruptions, pollution incidents and internal sewer flooding.

Out of 11 water companies fined, Thames Water performed the worst and was ordered to return £51m to customers in the form of discounted bills by OFWAT, the industry regulator.

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.