The Financial Ombudsman Service has hired mobile phone customer service executive Abby Thomas to be its new CEO and Chief Ombudsman.

Ms Thomas will take over from interim CEO Nausicaa Delfas who was seconded from the FCA in April 2021 and will return to the regulator.

Ms Thomas, 43, has substantial consumer experience in the mobile phone sector and currently works for Virgin Media O2, one of the UK's biggest phone operators. 

Her roles at Virgin Media O2 have included leading Virgin Media's consumer operations, with responsibility for service call centres, field force and supply chain leadership. She will take up her new role in the autumn.

Ms Thomas said: “I believe that the Financial Ombudsman Service is critical to the effective functioning of the British economy and has never been more important than it is today. 

“This is because at times of economic turbulence, it helps to maintain consumer confidence in financial markets. That is why I’m excited and honoured to have the opportunity to lead the organisation and support consumers and financial services to get fair, timely and effective resolutions to complaints.”

Ms Thomas started her career as a strategy consultant, working for Accenture, Hedra (a public sector consultancy), and EY. She moved to industry in 2014 where her first role was to lead BT’s customer experience transformation. Following this, she moved to Vodafone where she led the global customer operations function for multi-national customers and then to Virgin Media where she was responsible for the customer teams.

Baroness Manzoor, chairman of the Financial Ombudsman Service, said: “I am delighted that Abby will be joining us. She brings a wealth of experience in top executive roles in high-pressured, customer-facing organisations. Her passion for delivering great service to all our customers, and connection to our mission of delivering fair and impartial decisions on complaints, was evident throughout this recruitment process.

“Within the Financial Ombudsman Service, we have great, committed people. We are giving them more of the tools that they need to provide a better, quicker service to consumers and financial businesses. Maximising the use of our technology, embedding better ways of working, and fully engaging our people in change, are among the challenges that this organisation is rising to. Abby’s passion, experience and leadership will be crucial to this effort.

“I would like to thank Nausicaa Delfas for the leadership she has provided to the organisation over the past year as our interim chief executive and Chief Ombudsman, during a period of significant challenge; she has made significant changes. We are now better prepared to deliver our ambitious strategy for service improvement and operational excellence. I am delighted that she has agreed to continue her secondment until the autumn.”