Worcestershire rural broadband provider appoints new CFO
Rural broadband specialist Airband has appointed a new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jeffrey Kriek to its board as well as 40 new hires so far this year across the breadth of the company’s operations.
The announcement follows Airband’s appointment in February 2020 as a network partner for the West Mercia 5G project - one of seven rural 5G projects across the UK to secure DCMS funding.
Jeffrey Kriek joins Airband from Helios Towers, a UK listed telecom tower infrastructure company, where he played an integral role in raising debt and equity capital to support its growth.
Mr Kriek brings more than 20 years’ experience in banking and finance to the role. Prior to Helios Towers, he worked for more than 15 years with banks ABN Amro and RBS, advising telecom companies at board level on strategy and fund raising.
Redmond Peel, founder and director of Airband, warmly welcomed Jeffrey Kriek to the board.
“We’re privileged to have Jeffrey on board as the new CFO of Airband. He brings strong operational and strategic finance experience to the role and his great track record and telecoms experience will help us secure investment that can fast-track Airband to the next stage,” he said.
“Ultrafast broadband has become mainstream and we have a short window of opportunity to consolidate our position as a market leader in the rural fibre broadband market.
“Our rural expertise and history of being trusted by government partners and other stakeholders is the perfect foundation for success as we hyper-scale in order to deliver better broadband to as many areas as possible. Jeffrey’s extensive experience in raising debt and equity capital, is perfect for what we are trying to achieve, and I’m very much looking forward to working with him through one of the most exciting and challenging periods in the history of the telecoms industry.”
Mr Kriek, new CFO at Airband, said: “I’m thrilled to join Airband at this exciting point in its journey. An ongoing investment programme from Amber Infrastructure has already enabled Airband to fast-track innovative new developments.
“Going forwards, securing further funding will enable us to invest in our operations and in an ambitious recruitment drive, giving us even greater capacity to deploy fibre networks at speed and significantly increase our market presence - notably in rural areas.”
Mr Peel also paid credit to Airband finance director, Andrew Price, who leaves the firm after 18 months on the board. “We’re grateful to Andrew for his vision and drive and for his contribution to the success of Airband during his time with us and we wish him all the very best in his future endeavours.”
