Original article Total Telecom:Read More
Having brought together five businesses – Giganet, Jurassic Fibre, Swish Fibre, the original AllPoints Fibre, and Cuckoo – into a single group, APFN (a wholesale business) and Cuckoo (a retail business) now operate as self-standing companies, owned by Fern Fibre.
Now that that process is complete, some leadership changes are taking place.
- Ronan Kelly, previously APFN CTO, has been appointed APFN Managing Director.
- Nisreen El-Kaloush, previously Commercial Director, has been appointed Chief Commercial Officer, who will lead on developing long-term commercial frameworks.
- As leadership of the business at group level is no longer required with the consolidation and relaunch complete, Jarlath Finnegan, Group CEO, and Graham McGregor, Group CFO, are departing.
Ronan, along with Sarah Howells, MD of Cuckoo, will report to Fern Fibre’s new Executive Chair, Adam Dunlop, who joined the Fern Fibre Trading Limited Board in May 2025. Adam has held several leadership roles across various telecom enterprises, most recently serving as CEO of TalkTalk. He has also held leadership positions at iD Mobile, Dixons Carphone and Cable & Wireless.
The changes follow APFN’s successful launch of aquila, a transformative new wholesale fibre platform designed to give Communication Service Providers (CSPs) seamless, scalable access to full-fibre broadband across the UK, last month.
aquila currently integrates Openreach, BT Wholesale, CityFibre, and APFN’s own infrastructure into a single, easy-to-manage platform, unlocking connectivity to around 19 million premises — and counting. Since launching, APFN has already secured agreements with Daisy and Onecom, complementing existing relationships with companies such as Yappl and Meraki and further agreements will be announced over the coming weeks.
Commenting on the changes, Ronan Kelly said, “It’s an honour to take APFN into its next phase of trading now that the consolidation plan is complete. Since we launched aquila, we have had a fast start and we have huge interest from potential partners, and I am excited to connect more of them to the platform in the months ahead.”
“I want to express my warm thanks to Jarlath and Graham, who successfully transformed the five companies into the two we have now. They leave those companies in great shape as we continue to shake up the connectivity market.”
Commenting on his appointment, Adam Dunlop said: “I am coming into my role as Executive Chair at a very exciting time. I am already working with Ronan and Sarah so we can ensure that APFN and Cuckoo accelerate the great progress already made.”
“My sincere thanks to Jarlath and Graham. It is down to their hard work and dedication that both APFN and Cuckoo have got to where they are today. To build and successfully launch aquila in such a short time is a remarkable achievement whilst also bringing all our retail operations onto one platform with no legacy systems. On behalf of everyone at both companies, I want to send them our warm wishes for the future.”
Commenting on his departure, Jarlath Finnegan said, “My time with the organisation, first as a founding member at Giganet and then leading the APFN Group has been exciting, challenging, and above all, incredibly rewarding. With the original transformation plan now complete, this felt like the right moment to hand over. I’m proud that we built a market-leading wholesaler, successfully launched our aquila platform, and grew Cuckoo into a distinctive retail brand. That success is down to the brilliant teams across APFN and Cuckoo. Graham and I leave with confidence in their future and wish them every success in this next phase.