BT CEO Patterson's `Game of Two Halves' Sees Him Depart on Low

Gavin Patterson wooed shareholders early in his tenure as chief executive officer of BT Group Plc by taking the former phone monopoly into the modern era. He leaves on a low, after failing to solve discord with regulators.

Patterson, a former marketing director with Proctor & Gamble Co., rose to the top job in September 2013 after almost a decade in BT’s consumer unit. He won favor with shareholders by doubling down on a new pay-TV business and with a foray into mobile. A series of regulatory challenges and an accounting scandal in Italy has erased that goodwill.