Geoff Ibbett

Head of Business Assurance

Geoff is one of the telco industry’s most knowledgeable and active practitioners of revenue assurance and business assurance. Motivated by a love of investigating and solution-sharing, Geoff has made instrumental contributions to the industry throughout his career, earning him several TM Forum awards and a place in the RAG Hall of Fame. 

Although Geoff considers himself a ‘techie guy’ at heart, his diverse career has enabled him to straddle the technical and business worlds with ease. Starting in software development roles, he built his technical expertise and discovered how to ‘think like an investigator’.  

He then got the opportunity to cut his teeth in mediation systems for operators like British Telecoms (BT), where he got greater insight into the business and operational side of system data. Finally, the problem solving that this involved led to Geoff’s venture into revenue assurance, where his dual perspective has been invaluable. 

In fact, Geoff firmly believes that to solve any tech problem, you need to understand the systems that make a business work, how to interpret system data from a business point of view, and the many different perspectives of the people that run them. This has led to him being a bit of a social chameleon – just as easily navigating a technical workshop with a switch engineer as a fireside chat with senior managers.  

It’s taken me 25 years to gain this knowledge. By documenting it I can give other people a head start.

Throughout this varied career journey, one thing has been consistent: Geoff’s desire to give back. Since 2008, Geoff has taken every opportunity to support the telecoms community.

A key milestone was his decision to document the knowledge he wished he had when he started out in revenue assurance. This culminated in an extensive list of 25 years’ worth of risk findings and root causes to help newcomers and business leader alike identify corrective and preventative actions – the crowdsourced RAG Business Assurance Leakage Catalog.

This is just one of Geoff’s many industry contributions. He’s also the lead trainer for RA for the TM Forum (and Business Assurance trainer for Symmetry), has built training courses so effective that they’ve been bought by leaders like British Telecom , and has worked to redesign product-based solutions so they can be applied to more businesses, and more operational scenarios.

All in all, Geoff has spent decades of his career doing what he can for others. In recent years, he’s learned to find time for himself as well. His love for sailing has managed to take a front seat, and he now spends at least one month each year sailing the English Channel – a well-deserved “antidote to working”.