Our Management Team

Mr Gow became Managing Director in July 2006, following his years as CFO of Virgin Mobile, which he joined in February 1999 from One2One/T-Mobile. He had joined One2One in 1995 as Head of Business Planning, where he was instrumental in the strategic review and refinancing of the company. Subsequently, Mr Gow was involved in the pioneering launch of the pre-pay billing model in the UK, and was part of the team that put together the original Virgin T-Mobile joint venture. Since joining Virgin Mobile as a founding director, Mr Gow has steered the company through a series of funding rounds, and a successful IPO in 2004, concluding with the ntl/Telewest transaction in 2006. Mr Gow previously held senior planning and financial roles with Hilton International, Perrier, and Scottish & Newcastle plc. He holds an MBA with distinction from Manchester Business School and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.
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Mr Steel joined Virgin Mobile in February 1999 as Marketing Director and was responsible for the Virgin Mobile proposition to customers. In 2003, Mr Steel was appointed Commercial Director to oversee the company’s strategic and commercial development. In July 2006, Mr Steel was appointed Deputy Managing Director in addition to his role as Commercial Director. Prior to joining Virgin Mobile, Mr Steel held positions as Head of Business Development and Head of Mass Marketing for BT Cellnet. During this time he was responsible for managing all aspects of BT Cellnet’s proposition in the mass market and for several strategic partnerships, most notably with Barclaycard and Midland Bank. Before joining BT Cellnet, he spent five years at Arthur D. Little where he specialised in consulting in the telecommunications and media sectors and worked with clients including Microtel (Orange), BSkyB and Cellnet. Mr Steel holds a Masters Degree in engineering from Imperial College London. He trained with Unilever plc.
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Mr Hutchinson joined Virgin Mobile in June 1999 from Barclaycard where he was General Manager of Barclaycard's Telephony and New Media business unit. During his time he led Barclaycard's entry into the telecommunications market through a number of partnerships that included One2One and BT Cellnet. He was also directly responsible for the development and delivery of Barclaycard's mobile commerce strategy, which included the launch of the world's first bank account information service via mobile and the world's first mobile ATM electronic cash download service. Mr Hutchinson was initially recruited to Virgin Mobile as Head Of Business development with responsibility for the company's value added services, digital content and data strategy. In July 2000 he was promoted to Sales Director where he oversaw Virgin Mobile's distribution expansion and aggressive sales growth, achieving a fifteen fold increase is distribution and a 24% increase in market share within 2 years. In 2002 his role expanded to include proposition and customer marketing. As Sales and Marketing Director, he led key initiatives such as the 3p text campaign, contract market entry and development of the company's CVM strategy. Following the acquisition of Virgin Mobile by NTL, Graeme became Trading Director responsible for all sales, distribution, channel and supply chain activities including the expansion of cable products to the high street.
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Ms Thornber, 49, joined Virgin Mobile as People Director in January 2005. She brings a wide range of Human Resources experience from a variety of organisations including Marks & Spencer and CGNU, where she held senior HR roles. Ms Thornber joined Virgin Mobile from Virgin Money Group Ltd where she was appointed HR Director in July 2001 following the merger of Virgin Direct and virginmoney.com. Ms Thornber also helped build the HR function at both Virgin Direct and Virgin Money together with creating a culture reflective of the Virgin brand. Her role at Virgin Mobile is to develop an innovative and creative approach to its people by introducing the very best HR practices to the company. Through a dynamic and highly involved People team she will ensure the culture is truly reflective of its unique brand. Karen is a fellow of the Institute of Personnel and Development.
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Mike Thomas joined Virgin Mobile in December 1999, just weeks after launch. After initially helping establish the financial control function, he was promoted to Head of Commercial Finance where he established and developed this department. Following Virgin Mobile’s listing on the London Stock Exchange in July 2004, Mr Thomas was promoted to Head of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations which he held until June 2006. Prior to Virgin Mobile he held senior roles at Translink Operations in Australia where he set up and led the finance function for the company in charge of operating the world’s largest electronic tollway. Prior to this, Mr Thomas held various finance roles in BT Cellnet (now O2).
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Mr Foster joined Virgin Mobile in June 2000 from direct marketing agency, Brann. In his role as Brann's Director of Telemarketing he was responsible for the Sales, Client Service and Call Centre operations. He was responsible for the design and implementation of a range of direct and telemarketing programmes for organisations such as Barclays Bank, the Central Office of Information and several of the privatised utilities, and played an important role in supporting the launches of Orange, and Microsoft's Windows 95. Mr Foster was initially recruited to Virgin Mobile in June 2000 to manage the relationship with their in-sourced Customer Centre provider, Merchants. Following the successful transfer of the Centre to Virgin Mobile in August 2001 he became Head of Customer Service, delivering the industry leading service recognised 3 years running in both the JD Power and Mobile News annual customer awards.
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