Ziggo replaces chief commercial officer

Ziggo’s chief commercial officer Marcel Nijhoff is due to step down on March 1, with the Dutch cable operator announcing it has “entered a new phase with a different composition of management board.”

Nijhoff will be replaced by Ziggo’s current managing director of business-to-business, Hendrik de Groot, who also becomes a member of Ziggo’s management board, effective April 18.

Ziggo said that Nijhoff, who joined the firm in 2006, will leave the company by mutual agreement.

“I’m very pleased to welcome Hendrik de Groot in his new role. Ziggo will benefit greatly from his proven track record of business success and leadership,” said Ziggo CEO, René Obermann.

De Groot has been Ziggo’s MD of B2B since 2010, prior to which he was group director of voice products at COLT Telecommunications and before that head of global accounts at Vodafone Group.

The news comes just weeks after Liberty Global agreed to buy Ziggo, in a deal that values the Dutch operator at roughly €10 billion. The deal was unanimously recommended by Ziggo’s supervisory and management boards and is expected to close in the second half of 2014.