EVP and Group President, Verizon Wireless
Ronan Dunne admits to being a bit of a financial geek as a child, reading the Financial Times and managing his own small share portfolio. “It’s fair to say I’ve been fascinated by business from an early age,” he smiles.
Leaving school, he was going to do a law degree, but after a President of his school’s past pupils union (and senior partner in a major accountancy firm) asked the school to introduce him to talented pupils who might be interested in pursuing a qualification in Chartered Accountancy, Ronan was quickly hooked. “I’ve always been a very practical person and what I loved about Chartered Accountancy was the chance to study but also to work at the same time and put into practice what I was learning. Chartered Accountancy really was seen as the passport to global business – much as the MBA was in the United States.”
He was clear from Day 1 that he wanted to be in business not practice, “but that was the great thing about Chartered Accountancy – you could start off with a broad training and then narrow down to what really interested you and work to your strengths.” A secondment to Touche Ross in London put him at the heart of business at the time when the Big Bang was transforming financial markets. Eager to get deeper into the fast-moving world of financial services, he secured a position as senior financial accountant at the major international bank, BNP, with a view to trying to get into the banking side of the business.
Gaining credibility
His talents and hard work quickly singled him out, leading to him becoming chief accountant for BNP in London at the tender age of 27. “That was symptomatic of the times – and I’m not sure a 27-year old would be handed that level of responsibility today. But being a Chartered Accountant gave me credibility beyond my years. Sure – I had to back that up with capability but I doubt that any other qualification would have secured that position for me.”
It was the newly-arrived CEO of BNP who helped Ronan make the leap from finance to real banking business, presenting him with an opportunity in the bank’s corporate division to support the UK subsidiaries of global corporations. However, when one of his own clients, Waste Management International, approached him to join its treasury function, he leapt at the chance. “I quickly discovered that being in banking is a bit like having a Chinese meal. You do a transaction for a client but it’s not very satisfying for long because you only see the financing bit – you don’t get to see the really exciting part which is what happens when that financing is put into action in the business. I really wanted to help drive business change.”
Two years later he truly got to demonstrate his skills at business change when he was headhunted by the British transport business, NFC, to help implement a radical restructure of the company that culminated in a merger to form logistics giant, Exel plc – a transaction that he views as one of the key achievements of his career.
At NFC, Ronan worked with David Finch, a fellow Chartered Accountant. When Finch was headhunted to be CFO of what would become O2, the mobile operator spun out of British Telecom, he invited Ronan to join him. In 2005, the year when the company was bought by Spanish telecoms operator, Telefónica, for £17.7 billion, Ronan became CFO of the UK operations.
“What is easy to forget now is that lots of people expected O2 to fail, so when we were bought for close to £18 billion rather than the £2 to £3 billion the market had previously valued us at – it was a great endorsement of the work we had done to literally create a complete corporate and finance function from scratch, reducing debt, increasing revenue and generally making the business the most successful operator in the UK. My Chartered Accountancy background was invaluable. No other skill set would have enabled me to achieve what was required.”
In January 2008, he was invited to become CEO of Telefónica O2 UK – now one of Britain’s biggest phone networks with 23 million subscribers. He remained in the role until September 2016, when he took up the position of executive vice president and group president at Verizon Wireless in the United States.
Logical and rational
Being CEO, he says, called on the qualities he learnt as a Chartered Accountant – such as a deep-rooted sense of values and purpose. Being confident around numbers and having an innate understanding of financials also means much more freedom to focus on other issues in the business.
But most of all, he says, it’s the logical and rational approach to problem solving which he learnt as a Chartered Accountant that holds him in good stead. This ability to think broadly and bring together facts, analysis and intuition has enabled him to make a major contribution not only to O2 but to the telecoms industry and UK economy. Alongside a range of innovations, Dunne drove O2 to the lowest churn rate and lowest complaint level in the UK.
Evolve or die
Speaking in 2013, Ronan anticipated that 4G technology would be transformational – providing pervasive, anytime/anywhere broadband technology enabling consumers to manage their lives on the move.
“In any business – and especially telecoms – you need to evolve or die. If you just keep doing what you’ve always done, the market will move away from you very rapidly. You don’t need to get every idea right but people do want to be with a trusted, reliable brand that is prepared to innovate.”
And the secret of good innovation? “Being close to your customers. We have 23 million users telling us and – more importantly – showing us every day what they are doing with mobile technology – and that’s what gives us the insight for what we do next.”
Theory into action
He is also inspired by the opportunity for companies like O2 to drive societal change and a sustainability agenda. He spends time on youth employment projects such as GoThinkBig – a platform for work experience, and innovation projects such as Wayra – a start-up incubator which will invest and provide office space to fledging technology.
As to the future, he remains excited by the possibilities that the telecoms sector continues to offer. “But I’m really open to challenges in any sector where there’s the opportunity to drive a big change agenda – that’s what inspires me.” He is also keen to continue promoting Chartered Accountancy among a new generation of business talent. “We need Chartered Accountants more than ever in business. MBAs now are 90% theory. Chartered Accountancy is the one qualification where you train to turn theory into actionable opportunity – and that’s what sets it apart.”
