BT IRELAND’S chief executive Chris Clark is moving back to Britain to take up a senior role with its parent company.

Mr Clark, who has led the Irish operation since July 2007, has been appointed as managing director of BT Enterprises in the UK, which is part of its retail division and includes payphones and directory inquiries.

The British telecoms company yesterday informed staff that chief financial officer Graham Sutherland would be replacing Mr Clark as head of the all-Ireland operation in May.

Mr Sutherland has been BT Ireland’s CFO since 2006.

He was previously managing director of NTL Communications for four years. Mr Sutherland has also served as finance director of Bombardier Business Jet Solutions in Texas and was head of Maydown Precision Engineering in Derry.

BT entered Ireland in 1999 with the €290 million purchase of Denis O’Brien’s Esat Telecom.

It reported its first profit in this market in the year to the end of March 2009, when it recorded a surplus of €2.13 million. This compared to a pretax loss of €21.3 million for the 12 months to the end of March 2008.

In 2009, BT announced the transfer of its consumer and small-business customers to Vodafone.