Board of Directors

Richard Greenleaf - Chair

Richard Greenleaf - Chair

Richard joined the board of KCOM as a Non-Executive Director in November 2024.

Richard is the Head of the Portfolio Performance Group (PPG) in Europe. He leads a team of senior operational specialists to drive financial and operational performance throughout the investment lifecycle across the Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) Real Assets European infrastructure portfolio. Richard has extensive infrastructure investment and asset management experience, having played a leading role on several investments across MAM’s European portfolio.

He initially joined Macquarie Capital in London, where he advised on a range of European utility and infrastructure acquisitions. He then moved to Sydney, where he focused on mergers and acquisitions in the Australian industrials sector and advised on a wide range of buy-side, sell-side, capital raisings, and defence mandates. Richard leveraged this experience to move back to London and become Head of Investment Performance across the European portfolio before forming and leading the PPG in Europe today. Richard holds a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Nottingham University.

Richard Schäfer - Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer

Richard Schäfer

Richard joined KCOM originally as CFO before becoming CEO in July 2025. He has an extensive senior financial leadership track record having worked in the domestic UK and international telecommunication sector for more than 25 years, including roles at Three UK, Vodafone UK, Onecom and Lebara. At Three UK, he helped build, launch and grow the UK’s first pure 3G telecommunication company and delivered what was, at the time, one of largest European telecommunication outsourcing agreements between Three UK and Ericsson, valued at over £1bn. At Vodafone UK, he provided financial leadership to the pioneering site sharing joint venture between Vodafone and O2 in additional to turning around the commercial fortunes of Vodafone UK’s Enterprise (B2B) division. During his time at Onecom, one of the UK’s leading total communications companies, Richard supported the commercial and financial objectives of the business through organic as well as inorganic growth. Richard was the Group Chief Financial Officer at Lebara, playing an instrumental role in stabilising the company and returning it back to growth under private equity ownership.  More recently, he was Group CFO at the Lyca Group and then Group CEO from June 2023 until June 2024.      

Born in the UK, Richard is a dual British and German national, who was educated in England. Richard holds an undergraduate degree in International Business and German from Aston University, a postgraduate degree in Economic Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a qualified chartered accountant registered with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).  

Fiona Goldsmith - Non-Executive Director

Fiona Goldsmith - Non-Executive Director

Fiona joined the KCOM Board as a Non-Executive Director in April 2022 and chairs the Audit and Risk Committee. She has considerable and wide-ranging business and finance experience. She is a chartered accountant whose career has spanned several executive leadership and Non-executive roles. She will Chair the Audit and Risk sub-committee of the KCOM Board of Directors.  Fiona’s latest executive role was as Finance Director at Land Securities Trillium, the UK’s largest commercial property development company. During her tenure as Finance Director the business launched a £1bn infrastructure fund. More recently, She has supported companies with her extensive finance, audit and risk experience acting as Non-Executive Director and Chair of Audit Committee at public listed UK firms MJ Gleeson Plc and Safestyle UK Plc.
Jaap Postma - Non-Executive Director

Jaap Postma - Non-Executive Director

Jaap joined the KCOM board as a Non-Executive Director in January 2020 and chairs the Remuneration Committee. Jaap brings with him a wealth of experience including more than twenty years working in the telecoms, digital and media sector, latterly as the CEO of Danish TV, broadband and telephony group Nuuday and as a member of the TDC Executive Committee, also in Denmark.

Prior to this, Jaap fulfilled a number of roles at Dutch telecoms company KPN including EVP Consumer Market Division, VP Carrier Services and Wholesale and General Manager Network Operations.

Jaap graduated in economics from Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in 1998.

Executive Leadership Team

Richard Schäfer - Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer

Richard Schäfer - Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer

Richard joined KCOM originally as CFO before becoming CEO in July 2025. He has an extensive senior financial leadership track record having worked in the domestic UK and international telecommunication sector for more than 25 years, including roles at Three UK, Vodafone UK, Onecom and Lebara. At Three UK, he helped build, launch and grow the UK’s first pure 3G telecommunication company and delivered what was, at the time, one of largest European telecommunication outsourcing agreements between Three UK and Ericsson, valued at over £1bn. At Vodafone UK, he provided financial leadership to the pioneering site sharing joint venture between Vodafone and O2 in additional to turning around the commercial fortunes of Vodafone UK’s Enterprise (B2B) division. During his time at Onecom, one of the UK’s leading total communications companies, Richard supported the commercial and financial objectives of the business through organic as well as inorganic growth. Richard was the Group Chief Financial Officer at Lebara, playing an instrumental role in stabilising the company and returning it back to growth under private equity ownership. More recently, he was Group CFO at the Lyca Group and then Group CEO from June 2023 until June 2024.

Born in the UK, Richard is a dual British and German national, who was educated in England. Richard holds an undergraduate degree in International Business and German from Aston University, a postgraduate degree in Economic Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a qualified chartered accountant registered with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).

Ian Shepherdson - Chief Technology Officer

Ian Shepherdson - Chief Technology Officer

Ian has over 29 years of experience working in the Telecoms/IT industry, gained in both direct customer facing roles and operational management. He was most recently the Head of Core Platform and Infrastructure for KCOM, responsible for the deployment of services across the national network. In his role as CTO Ian is responsible for setting and the delivery of KCOM strategy around both the access and core networks and the development of IT systems.

Neil Bartholomew - Managing Director, KCOM Consumer

Neil Bartholomew - Managing Director, KCOM Consumer

Neil joined KCOM as MD for our Consumer division in May 2022 after working for the business for a year as Interim Head of Sales and Marketing. Neil has nearly 20 years leadership experience in the Broadband/Telecoms sector mainly with Virgin Media where he held a number of senior leadership roles, the most recent being Executive Director of Customer Operations. Prior to that Neil has held leadership positions in professional services with Accenture and Arthur Andersen.
Jan Collins - Managing Director, KCOM Enterprise

Jan Collins - Managing Director, KCOM Enterprise

Jan has worked in Technology and Telecoms for the last 20 years and joined KCOM as MD for our Enterprise division (encompasing Wholesale and Business) in January 2024, bringing with her a wealth of experience and a proven track record in business transformation and growth.

Prior to joining KCOM, Jan’s most recent role was as Group Fibre Development Director for TalkTalk and has previously held leadership roles within Cisco Systems, Vodafone and Virgin Media.

Throughout her career Jan has been a strong supporter of talent development and a long-term ambassador for women in technology.

Kenneth Ross - Chief People Officer

Kenneth Ross - Chief People Officer

Kenneth joined KCOM in February 2022 as Chief People Officer. He has over 25 years HR experience gained across fast growing scale-up/start-up businesses and multi-national financial services organisations. He was most recently CPO at Modulr a digital payments platform, and prior roles have included HR Director for Barclaycard Europe and EMEA HR Director for Investment Banking and Capital Markets at Citi. In his role as CPO Kenneth is responsible for driving the People and Culture agenda to enable KCOM to deliver its organisational strategy and objectives.
Tim Fletcher - Director of Operations

Tim Fletcher - Director of Operations

Tim joined in KCOM in 2023 and is responsible for operational teams across the business and ensuring our repair and provision service is market leading.

He has more than 20 years’ experience in service and operations, previously heading up BT Wholesales' service function, where his responsibilities included improving service reliability, speed to resolve and customer contact strategy. His previous roles include time spent in Boston, US, leading BT’s web conferencing portfolio and as programme manager for BT's London 2012 Olympic network capacity delivery.