18 Facts About Phil Bentley

Phillip Keague Bentley was born on 14 January 1959 and is a British businessman.

Phil Bentley holds a master's degree from Pembroke College, Oxford and an MBA from INSEAD.

Phil Bentley is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Phil Bentley joined BP's graduate recruitment scheme in 1982, training as a management accountant.

Phil Bentley worked in China from 1983 to 1985, and then Egypt and the US, before returning to the UK as head of capital markets.

Phil Bentley joined Grand Metropolitan in 1995, which became Diageo in 1997; from 1 July 1999 until 2000 he was finance director of UDV Guinness.

Phil Bentley was group finance director of Centrica from 2000 to February 2007.

On 19 September 2006 it was announced that Phil Bentley would become the managing director of British Gas, part of the Centrica group, taking over from Mark Clare from March 2007.

Phil Bentley's stewardship was often controversial, as the company raised residential energy prices several times during his reign; protests at company premises were not unusual.

Phil Bentley frequently appeared in the media defending the company's decisions.

Phil Bentley repeatedly claimed that price rises were beyond the company's control, and that they were not increased to raise profits.

Phil Bentley said that the reason for the price increase was that average domestic gas consumption had increased by 12 per cent compared to the warmer previous year.

Phil Bentley was credited with improving the company's customer services and rolling out new technologies such as smart meters.

Phil Bentley was replaced by the managing director of Direct Energy Chris Weston.

Phil Bentley demitted office after the acquisition of CWC by Liberty Global on 16 May 2016.

Since the start of the COVID pandemic, Phil Bentley has overseen Mitie's work delivering a wide range of services, including running Covid-19 testing sites, cleaning offices and major transport services, and providing security for new quarantine hotels.

Phil Bentley has attempted to use the pandemic to redefine the traditional image of cleaning by introducing UVC robots and units.

On 1 October 2012 Phil Bentley was apportioned non-executive director of global engineering group IMI, and joined the audit committee and nominations committee.