The Board of Severn Trent, the UK's leading provider of water and waste water has today announced the appointment of Liv Garfield, currently CEO of BT’s Openreach, as the next Chief Executive to replace the Tony Wray when he retires in spring 2014.

Ms. Garfield has been CEO of Openreach since 2011. During her time at BT she also held the positions of Group Director of Strategy and Regulation, MD Commercial & Brands and UK Customer Services Director, within BT's Global Services division. Liv is also a non executive director of Tesco plc.

Andrew Duff, Severn Trent Chairman, said

“We are delighted that Liv is joining us to be our next Chief Executive. Liv brings experience of managing customer service delivery and complex organisations in a regulated environment.

It is a testimony to the quality of this company that we have been able to attract someone of Liv's capabilities. This is in great part due to the outstanding job that Tony Wray has done during his time as CEO. “

As CEO of Openreach - BT's local access network division – Ms. Garfield oversaw BT's £2.5bn commercial roll-out of fibre broadband. She also played a pivotal role in building the business case for BT's commercial fibre investment in her previous role as BT's Group Strategy Director.