Tidjane Thiam an executive director, sitting on the plc board. In January 2007, after Richard Harvey announced he would step down as chief executive of Aviva, Thiam was tipped as a possible future head of the group. Thiam left Aviva in September 2007 to become chief financial officer of Prudential plc. In March 2009, Thiam was named chief executive, effective from October, after Mark Tucker chose to step down. The appointment made him the first African to lead a FTSE 100 listed company. His departure from the role was announced on 10 March 2015. After he became chief executive, Prudential launched a
BT Global Services end of its 2010–2011 financial year, Global Services had increased orders with customers by 10% year on year, improved profitability, and became operating cash flow positive a year ahead of schedule. Total income for Global Services in 2016-7 was more than £5bn. From 2004 until 2008 François Barrault was CEO of BT Global Services and president of BT International, before leaving the company after poor financial performance results. He was replaced by Hanif Lalani. Jeff Kelly was appointed CEO in early 2010. Luis Alvarez was appointed CEO, in October 2012. Prior, Alvarez had been president of BT’s European, Middle East,