New MD for UPC Czech Republic

AMSTERDAM/PRAGUE: Starting January 1, 2014, Frans-Willem de Kloet, currently the managing director of Liberty Global Business Services, will take over day-to-day operating responsibilities for UPC Czech Republic in the role of managing director.

In this capacity, de Kloet replaces Vaclav Barton, who is retiring.

Succeeding de Kloet as managing director of Liberty Global Business Services is Chris Coles. He, too, takes on the new post starting January 1, 2014. Coles will be relocating to Amsterdam from Denver, where he has been running his own consulting business.

Diederik Karsten, the executive VP of Liberty Global’s European broadband operations, commented: “With Frans-Willem de Kloet we will have a well-experienced successor with a proven track record at Liberty Global. His role fits excellent with our activities in the Czech Republic where we also have an important B2B business, following our acquisition of Sloane Park in 2011. UPC Czech has a nation-wide fiber network, connecting its existing metropolitan networks into a full national meshed network reaching over 90 percent of the country with connections to the neighboring countries and has state-of-the-art datacenters. I’m convinced that Frans-Willem will lead UPC Czech into its next phase, exploring new opportunities and benefiting from the economies of scale of Liberty Global.”