CROSBY-BORN Ann Pickering has joined the nine-man board of mobile phone giant O2 as HR director.
She was previously head of HR for O2 UK and her new role will make her responsible for strategy and welfare.
Mrs Pickering will lead a team of 120 HR professionals who look after the company’s 12,000 employees, including the 1,600 at O2’s site at Preston Brook, near Runcorn.
She said: “Our challenge is to ensure that we provide a great service to our customers so we need our employees to be engaged and enjoy coming to work.
“We were fifth in the Sunday Times ‘Best Companies to Work For’ last year. We are waiting to see where we are this year, which we will find out at the end of this month. If we could improve on fifth, that would be fabulous.”
Her appointment was one of four new board appointments that follows the recent appointment of Ronan Dunne as Chief Executive Officer.
Ann, who now lives in Sheffield, joined O2 in March, 2004, having previously worked in senior HR roles at Xansa and Fidelity Investments.
