Joanna, Rafford Consulting’s managing director, was until December 2010 the Head of BT Global Services’ regulatory team; a vice-presidential role that underpinned BT’s activities in over 150 countries. The development of regulatory strategies to complement business objectives on a case by case basis was at the heart of her approach to regulation. Her experience in the theory and practical application of telecommunications regulation is immense. She was closely involved in the development and application of a range of regulatory issues including accounting separation, functional separation and margin squeeze tests.
She was Chairman of the European Competitive Telecoms Association (ECTA) Business Services group, which focuses on the potential benefits of competitively supplied ICT to companies and consumers and, prior to that, ECTA’s Regulatory Finance and Accounting Separation working group for a number of years. In both roles she was at the forefront of lobbying the European Commission on behalf of the European telecoms industry, not just BT, for the development and application of appropriate regulation. She developed and ran similar campaigns at local level with national regulators for BT worldwide.