The executive team led by Kyle Whitehill combines a wealth of talent and experience from a range of telecommunications backgrounds. The executive team is committed to providing the highest quality service to customers and cultivating the Avanti experience for all the company employees.
Kyle Whitehill
Chief Executive Officer
Libby Barr
Chief Operating Officer – Customer
Vikas Grover
Chief Technology Officer
Debbie Mavis
Group HR Director
Rob Plews
Chief Financial Officer
Toby Robinson
Chief of Strategy and Business Development
Bridget Sheldon-Hill
General Counsel and Company Secretary
Donald Walker
Senior VP of Government and Defence
Marios Fotiou
Senior VP of Solutions Engineering and Delivery
Kyle Whitehill
Chief Executive Officer
Kyle Whitehill joined Avanti Communications (Avanti) in April 2018 as the Group Chief Executive Officer.
During his time at Avanti, Kyle has led the company’s growth strategy and has expanded Avanti’s global footprint. Significant milestones include launching Avanti’s new multi-orbit strategy and embedding the company’s customer centric approach, which has delivered 270% growth in bandwidth revenues. Kyle has also helped the company secure many influential partnerships within the ever-growing SatCom market in the security, government, maritime and enterprise sectors.
Kyle has extensive experience in the FMCG, mobile, fixed and converged products industries. Prior to joining Avanti, he served as CEO of Liquid Telecom South Africa, where he focused on operational excellence, customer experience and talent investment, which led to significant company growth during his tenure.
For 16 years Kyle held various senior leadership positions at Vodafone Group, including CEO of Vodafone Qatar Q.S.C., CEO of Vodafone Ghana, COO of Vodafone India and Chairman of Vodafone India PTY. At Vodafone UK, he has also held positions including Enterprise Business Unit Director, Sales Director and Strategic Relationships Director.
Over Kyle’s 35-year career he has worked across the globe and seen first-hand the benefits a connected life can bring. During his time at Vodafone, working and living in countries like India and Ghana, Kyle realised a personal passion to connect the unconnected. His overarching goal is to be a part of something that will change the world for the better and ensure everyone has the power to ‘Be More’.
Libby Barr
Chief Operating Officer – Customer
Libby Barr is the Chief Operating Officer at Avanti Communications (“Avanti”) and a member of its Executive Committee. Joining in January 2019, Libby is responsible for the development and growth of the Carrier, Mobility and Enterprise customers along with overseeing the end-to-end customer experience across Avanti’s Sales and Marketing departments.
Libby is passionate about connecting some of the hardest-to-reach communities in the world. Key milestones include the connectivity of over 1,000 villages in Africa, to which Avanti has made significant investments to provide satellite infrastructure and digital connectivity in rural and ultra-rural areas. Along with her team, Libby’s focus will be on connecting a further 10,000 villages and schools over the next five years.
Prior to Avanti, Libby was at BT for nine years. As Managing Director of Customer Care, she was a key member of the BT Consumer Leadership Team who grew the company’s revenue by more than £1.2bn in five years. Libby was also responsible for the strategic vision, leadership and transformation of a 10,000 strong Customer Care organisation across more than 30 sites worldwide.
Libby began her career at Vodafone. At the company for 22 years, she held positions in both the global and UK organisations, leading the Enterprise Sales and Service organisations. In addition, Libby was a Trustee of the Vodafone Foundation.
Vikas Grover
Chief Technology Officer
Vikas Grover is the Chief Technology Officer at Avanti Communications (Avanti) and is a member of the Executive Team.
Vikas joined Avanti in March 2021 and leads all Operational and Network functions, which accounts for over half the business.
Vikas was recently the founding Chief Information Officer at OneWeb, where he led Global Networks, IT Platforms and Security. Before OneWeb, he was the CIO and EVP Technology Planning at Vodafone India. Vikas brings a rich cross-industry experience from his stint at KPMG (Atos).
Debbie Mavis
Group HR Director
Debbie Mavis joined Avanti Communications (“Avanti”) in July 2018 as Group HR Director, where she sits on the company’s Executive Committee. Debbie manages Avanti’s HR, Property and Communications departments, in addition to overseeing Avanti’s instrumental work in education.
Debbie is passionate about improving the learning outcomes of young people across the globe and closing the education gap. During her time at Avanti, Debbie has led several high-profile education-focused projects, including the company’s work with the UNHCR. Key milestones to date include providing more than 200,000 children in Africa with access to quality education and delivering connectivity to seven off-grid refugee settlements in Uganda, which has helped to further Avanti’s mission to provide life-enhancing connectivity solutions when and where they are needed most. To further her commitment to quality education for all, in 2023, Debbie became an ambassador for the Global Partnership for Education as a UK Champion.
Debbie has over 25 years of experience working in telecommunications and banking. Before joining Avanti, she was Director of Talent and Resourcing at TSB Bank for six years, where she was central to the divestment of the entity from Lloyds Banking Group. Before that, Debbie was at Vodafone for 12 years where she held several senior roles. During that time, she built strong succession capability in all Vodafone’s European markets and coached and mentored executives from across the Group.
Rob Plews
Chief Financial Officer
Rob Plews is the Chief Financial Officer at Avanti Communications (Avanti) and a member of the Executive Committee. Rob is responsible for all aspects of finance for the Group including investor relations, delivering meaningful commercial insight and day-to-day operations.
At Avanti for six years, he originally joined as Deputy CFO. During his tenure Rob has been instrumental in completing the financing of Avanti’s HYLAS 3 and HYLAS 4 satellites and is focussed on supporting the organisation to deliver its strategic goals.
Rob is a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and was a Director in the Technology, Telecommunications & Media team at BDO LLP for 14 years. Prior to joining Avanti, Rob was Group Financial Controller at Harkand Group, a private equity owned international subsea services group.
Toby Robinson
Chief of Strategy and Business Development
Toby Robinson is the Chief of Strategy and Business Development at Avanti Communications (Avanti) and a member of the Executive Committee. He joined the company in October 2017 with thirty years’ experience in international Telecoms Media and Technology.
At Avanti, Toby is responsible for the development of the company strategy and driving large wholesale bandwidth deals with other major players in the satellite industry. He led the business development process resulting in the signing of Avanti’s largest commercial contract to date.
Prior to joining Avanti, Toby was group Chief Commercial Officer at Eaton Towers from 2008 to 2017. As a member of the start-up management team, who grew the business to 5,000 towers across Africa, he was responsible for the acquisition of all the towers in the network. He oversaw all negotiations with Bharti Airtel and Orange in the acquisitions programme and dealt with key customers in the region, including Vodafone, MTN, Etisalat, Google and Africell.
Toby began his career as a strategy consultant working at Bain & Co, before moving on to Arthur Andersen as a Partner. In 2003, he took the role of Managing Director Europe at Mercator Partners and in 2004 joined OC&C Strategy Consultants as a Partner in their Telecoms, Media & Technology practice.
Bridget Sheldon-Hill
General Counsel and Group Company Secretary
Bridget Sheldon-Hill is the General Counsel and Group Company Secretary at Avanti Communications (Avanti). Joining the company in January 2020, Bridget oversees the Legal Department, sits on the Executive Committee and is Secretary to the Board.
In her role, Bridget is responsible for supporting all areas of the business across EMEA and the U.S.A. to structure legal and commercial frameworks and support global network initiatives.
Prior to joining Avanti, Bridget held numerous senior leadership roles. After spending 7 years as a senior associate at Allen & Overy LLP, where she was co-head of the Africa Desk and a member of the Mergers and Acquisitions practice, she took up the position of Group General Counsel for Eaton Towers, a passive infrastructure company supporting mobile network operators through investment in and construction of mobile phone towers. Bridget was appointed to establish a legal function and drive growth within Africa. In the role for five years, she was responsible for litigation and compliance management, M&A negotiations and implementation, in addition to serving on the executive management team.
Bridget also spent two and a half years at the Pinewood Studio Group as a member of the management committee, Group General Counsel and Secretary to the Board. During her time at Pinewood she was involved in the successful refinancing of the business as well as the negotiation and implementation of long-term contracts with Netflix and Disney.
Donald Walker
Senior VP of Government and Defence
Donald Walker joined Avanti in 2017 with responsibility to develop and deliver services in support of military customers and for growing Avanti’s Defence business in the US, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
Prior to joining Avanti Donald spent 18 years as a naval officer followed by a number of years in the commercial world. In the military, Donald served in a number of roles at sea, undertook staff tours in the Ministry of Defence, served ashore in Iraq, India and Pakistan and served on operations with NATO and the EU. In his final job before leaving the military, Donald worked in the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters, responsible for the logistic support of all the UK’s overseas military operations.
On leaving the Navy Donald worked first for the Supreme Group and then DynCorp International, delivering logistics support to US, UK, NATO and EU operations across Africa and the Middle East. In 2015, Donald moved to Fujitsu Defence & National Security supporting the sale and delivery of deployable Command and Control and Intelligence systems to the MoD and wider UK Government.
Since joining Avanti in 2017 Donald has forged partnering relationships with satellite operators, equipment manufacturers and system integrators. These partnerships have allowed Avanti to create and grow a Defence business that delivers critical communications support to military and Government users across EMEA.
Marios Fotiou
Senior VP of Solutions Engineering and Delivery
Marios Fotiou is a space systems engineer with more than a decade of experience in satellite communications and satellite communications service design and delivery. He is a graduate of Electronic Engineering from the University of Surrey and holds a master’s degree in Spacecraft Systems and Satellite Communications from UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory.
Since September 2011 he has worked in Cyprus for Avanti Communications taking multiple technical roles within satellite systems engineering and satellite procurement programme management. In spring 2018 he took the role of the HYLAS 4 spacecraft mission director up to its successful launch from French Guiana.
Following that he has worked on building a strong Solutions Engineering function that has successfully supported the closure and delivery of major contracts in all areas of the business including Carriers, Defence, and the Industry. In July last year he was given the responsibility to bring together all the customer facing technical teams of the business that gave rise to Solutions Engineering & Delivery encompassing the Solutions, Service Delivery and Technical Service Desk teams with an aim to provide an excellent end-to-end experience to our customers.
Before joining Avanti, Marios had worked for the 1st private mobile telephony network operator in Cyprus as well as regional satellite service providers in the fixed and maritime sector.
He is currently serving at the national technical experts committee supporting the Cyprus Minister of Communications and Works on issues of national space policy, that lead the country signing up a European Cooperate State agreement with the European Space Agency in 2016. He is an active member of the Executive Committee of the Cyprus international Business Association and a long-standing member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) in the UK.