Virgin’s Cable Guy

Neil Berkett has been promoted to a permanent role as chief executive at Virgin Media. Berkett took on the job at the cable company as acting chief executive in August last year when Steve Burch resigned. Berkett began his career at the national Post Office in New Zealand before moving to Australia. The former banking executive joined the UK cable industry in 2005, when he became chief operating officer of NTL, which later merged with rival Telewest and was rebranded as Virgin Media. Virgin Media chairman Jim Mooney said the board is delighted at his acceptance of the role. “Since taking on the role of acting CEO six months ago, he’s demonstrated that he has both the strategic vision and operational experience to take the company into its next phase of growth,” Mooney said.