BT's Liv Garfield joins board of Tesco

BT Openreach's chief executive Liv Garfield, arguably the most senior woman in the British telecoms industry, has landed her first FTSE 100 directorship with a non-executive role at Tesco.

The supermarket giant said she "will bring valuable experience of new and emerging technologies" to the retailer as it battles to adapt in the new era of internet and mobile e-commerce.

Ms Garfield is not on the board of BT but runs Openreach, a £5bn-a-year division that supplies super-fast fibre broadband to 13m premises. Analysts have tipped her as a contender to succeed Ian Livingston as BT chief executive.

She cut her teeth as a consultant at Accenture before joining BT in 2002 and Mr Livingston promoted her to chief executive of Openreach in 2011. Not yet 40, the Cambridge graduate is married with two children and lives in south-west London.

Ms Garfield will join Tesco at a critical time as chief executive Philip Clarke has not found it easy since taking over from Sir Terry Leahy two years ago.