Finance
CityFibre founder Mesch steps down, COO succeeds him as CEO
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on September 2, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on September 2, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
CityFibre's founder Greg Mesch steps down as CEO, succeeded by Simon Holden. The company secured $3 billion financing and aims to expand its network.
LONDON (Reuters) -British fibre broadband network CityFibre's founder Greg Mesch has stepped down as chief executive and has been succeeded by chief operating officer Simon Holden with immediate effect, the company said on Tuesday.
Mesch, who has led the company since it was founded in 2011, has been appointed vice chairman, it said.
Mesch said it was an obvious time to make the change given that he was 65 and had been relentlessly working on CityFibre 24/7 for 15 years, culminating in signing its biggest customer, Sky last year.
"When I closed the Sky contract, it was kind of the end because it took me almost 12 years from the first meeting with Sky to get them over the line," he told Reuters in an interview.
"We also did the financing. So when the financing was done we waited until after the summer holidays and decided to make the announcement."
"It's a very, very good succession plan. Simon has been in this company for six years," he added.
CityFibre, which competes with the likes of BT and Virgin Media O2 in the UK, secured a $3 billion financing in July to fund its network and acquire smaller rivals.
The company, backed by Antin Infrastructure Partners and Goldman Sachs, in February reported its first full year of profit, and aims to expand its wholesale network to more than 8 million premises.
It has built Britain's third-largest broadband network, selling fibre connections via retail providers including Vodafone, TalkTalk and Sky, its newest customer.
Mesch, who plans to move back to his native United States, said he would continue to support CityFibre's long-term direction as vice chairman.
(Reporting by Raechel Thankam Job in Bengaluru and Paul Sandle in London; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Sonia Cheema and Tomasz Janowski)
Simon Holden has succeeded Greg Mesch as CEO of CityFibre with immediate effect.
Greg Mesch secured a significant contract with Sky, which he described as a culmination of nearly 12 years of effort.
CityFibre aims to expand its wholesale network to more than 8 million premises.
CityFibre secured $3 billion in financing in July to fund its network and acquire smaller rivals.
After stepping down, Greg Mesch will continue to support CityFibre's long-term direction as vice chairman.
Explore more articles in the Finance category
