Basingstoke: Southern Communications makes significant appointment

Southern Communications has appointed Mathew Kirk as commercial director and shareholder of the business.

Kirk has been the corporate development director of TalkTalk Telecom Group plc since 2009 and prior to that was mergers and acquisitions director for The Carphone Warehouse Group from 2004.

At TalkTalk he was involved with the demerger from Carphone, led the acquisitions of OneTel, Tele2, AOL and Tiscali as well as over 20 transactions on behalf of the B2B division.

Over the past three years, Kirk has been a board member of TalkTalk Business, a £425 million revenue division of TalkTalk, a member of the Group’s innovation committee and has led a number of key outsourcing projects.

At Carphone he was also accountable for European corporate development activity including acquisitions in the UK, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Belgium and divestments in Germany, France, Ireland and Switzerland. He also played a key role in the mobile retail joint venture in the US with Best Buy which was bought out for c£800m in 2012.

CEO Paul Bradford commented: “The other directors and I are very excited to have secured Mathew’s expertise and feel his appointment is a real statement of intent around the continued growth of Southern Communications, both organically and through acquisition.”

Southern Communications is a national supplier of voice, data and cloud solutions and has seen rapid growth over the past 10 years with a turnover this year of £18m achieved through organic growth and acquisitions.

Kirk added: “This is a great opportunity. I have been aware of the progress Southern Communications has been making in the market. There is a lot of passion, professionalism and drive, backed by a good solid team, which I am proud to be part of. I know this is a company that is going places and look forward to joining and helping drive the future growth.”