Phil Bentley

Phillip Keague Bentley (born 14 January 1959) is a British businessman. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Mitie, and formerly the CEO of Cable & Wireless Communications.^[1] and the managing director of British Gas, the British retail arm of the energy company Centrica.

Early and personal life

Bentley was brought up in Bradford, and attended Woodhouse Grove School in Apperley Bridge.^[2] He holds a master's degree from Pembroke College, Oxford and an MBA from INSEAD.^[3] He is also a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.^[3]

Bentley is married,^[4] and the couple have two children.^[4]

Career

Bentley joined BP's graduate recruitment scheme in 1982, training as a management accountant. He worked in China from 1983-5, and then Egypt and the US, before returning to the UK as head of capital markets.^[1] He joined Grand Metropolitan in 1995, which became Diageo in 1997; from 1 July 1999 until 2000 he was finance director of UDV Guinness.^[5]

Centrica

Bentley was group finance director of Centrica from 2000 to February 2007.^[6] and was also managing director, Europe from July 2004 to September 2006.^[6]

On 19 September 2006 it was announced that Bentley would become the managing director of British Gas, part of the Centrica group, taking over from Mark Clare from March 2007.^[7] Bentley's stewardship was often controversial, as the company raised residential energy prices several times during his reign;^[8] protests at company premises were not unusual.^[9] Bentley frequently appeared in the media defending the company's decisions.^[10] The controversy was fuelled by the rise in profits during Bentley's stewardship - profits from the residential energy division of British Gas increased by 24% in one year alone.^[11] Bentley repeatedly claimed that price rises were beyond the company's control, and that they were not increased to raise profits.^[12] Throughout his time at the company Bentley's salary (£681,000 in 2013)^[13] was the subject of frequent criticism.^[14]

On 27 February 2013, Centrica announced that Bentley would step down from his role at British Gas, from the Centrica board on 30 June 2013, and leave the company's employment on 31 December 2013.^[15] Bentley was replaced by the managing director of Direct Energy (also part of the Centrica group) Chris Weston.^[16]

Cable & Wireless

On 17 October 2013 it was announced that Bentley would succeed Tony Rice as CEO of Cable & Wireless Communications from 1 January 2014, coinciding with the relocation of the company headquarters from London to Miami, Florida.^[1][17] On 6 January 2014, C&WC announced that Bentley had purchased 4.3 million shares in the company, at a value of around 3 times his basic salary of £800,000.^[18][19] He demitted office after the acquisition of CWC by Liberty Global on May 16, 2016.

Mitie

In October 2016, it was announced that he would succeed Ruby McGregor-Smith as CEO of Mitie,^[20] which he duly did on 13 December 2016.^[21]

Other positions

Between 2002 and 2010 he was a non-executive director and chair of the audit committee of Kingfisher plc.^[22] On 1 October 2012 Bentley was apportioned non-executive director of global engineering group IMI, and also joined the audit committee and nominations committee.^[22]

References