Neil brings over 24 years’ experience in fibre and telecoms to his role as CEO at Freedom Fibre. As CEO and founder of Opal Telecom in the 1980s, Neil led its merger with Carphone Warehouse to create TalkTalk in 2002 and then ran its technology division for 8 years. In 2018, he became CEO of Fibre Nation, a fibre to the premises (FTTP) start-up backed by TalkTalk which was acquired by CityFibre in March 2020 for £200m. He is a member of the Board of Governors and Finance Committee of the University of Manchester, and a founder member of the Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership. Neil is also founder and chairman of non-profit organisations Manchester Tech Trust and Hamilton Davies Trust.