SimplyAI today announces the appointment of telecom industry leader Ian Fishwick as Chairman, supporting the company’s next phase of growth as it scales its AI-enabled communications platform through service-provider and reseller distribution channels across the UK and internationally.

Ian joins SimplyAI following his tenure as Chair of Airband, one of the UK’s leading rural broadband providers, where he helped support the company through a major investment phase securing approximately £250 million to accelerate fibre deployment across underserved communities. Having helped guide that next stage of infrastructure expansion, Ian is now focusing his efforts on what he sees as the next structural shift in telecom infrastructure: the integration of AI directly into business communications platforms.

Ian brings more than 30 years of leadership experience across the UK telecom and ICT sector. He founded AdEPT Technology Group and built the business from a start-up into a £75 million revenue communications and IT services platform, before leading its sale in a £100 million transaction in 2023. AdEPT was listed on the London Stock Exchange, where Ian served as CEO and later Chair for 17 years, gaining deep experience across governance, capital markets and investor relations. He reported 29 consecutive years of rising EBITDA and was named UK CEO of the Year three times.

Across his career Ian has completed 43 acquisitions, placing him among the most experienced buy-and-build operators in the UK ICT sector.

Earlier in his career he held senior leadership roles at Telewest Communications, running two of the company’s four regional businesses during the original UK fibre and cable roll-out and leading integration across multiple cable operators in London and the South East.

Ian now joins SimplyAI at a pivotal moment as the telecom sector begins transitioning toward AI-enabled communications infrastructure delivered through service-provider channels.

Ian Fishwick, Chairman of SimplyAI, said: “Telecom has gone through several major infrastructure transitions over the past 30 years. We are now entering another one as AI becomes embedded into everyday business communications.
SimplyAI is well positioned to help telecom service providers, MSPs and their customers adopt these capabilities in a practical and scalable way. I’m looking forward to supporting the company as Chairman during this next stage of growth.”

Alex Deighton, CEO of SimplyAI, said: “Ian has played a leadership role across several defining phases of telecom infrastructure development in the UK.
Having recently helped guide Airband through a major investment phase, his decision to join SimplyAI reflects the scale of the opportunity ahead as AI becomes part of the core communications stack delivered through the telecom channel.
SimplyAI is building what we believe will become the AI-first communications layer for service providers and their customers. Ian’s experience across public markets, acquisitions and telecom platform growth will be invaluable as we scale internationally and prepare for our next investment phase.”

Ian will work with the SimplyAI leadership team to support governance development, strategic partner alignment and the company’s upcoming investment cycles as it executes its five-year ambition to establish a global AI-first communications platform delivered through telecom and MSP distribution ecosystems.

About SimplyAI

SimplyAI is a telecom-native AI communications platform that enables service providers, MSPs and reseller partners to deploy AI agents across voice, messaging, websites and email as part of their existing communications infrastructure.

The platform embeds AI directly inside hosted PBX environments and SIP networks using its Agent-to-Extension (A2E) architecture, allowing organisations to introduce AI receptionists, support agents, after-hours automation and workflow assistants without replacing their current telecom systems.

Delivered through established telecom distribution ecosystems across the UK, Europe and North America, SimplyAI enables partners to introduce VoiceAI as a core communications upgrade rather than an overlay application, positioning AI as the next evolution of the business communications stack. The platform supports voice, SMS, WhatsApp, web chat and email agents within a single orchestration layer designed for channel deployment at scale.

SimplyAI is executing a channel-first strategy aligned to the structural shift underway as telecom platforms evolve toward AI- first communications environments, where automation becomes the primary interface for inbound customer interaction and workflow execution.

The company is already working alongside multiple hosted-PBX providers, telecom distributors and international service- provider ecosystems representing access to thousands of resellers and millions of business users globally.

With deep integration into telecom infrastructure and a distribution-led go-to-market strategy, SimplyAI is positioning itself as a key enablement partner in the transition toward AI-native business communications platforms, supporting service providers as they introduce agentic automation to their customer base.

The appointment of Ian Fishwick as Chairman further strengthens the company’s governance profile as SimplyAI progresses through its next investment phase and engages with UK, European and US venture capital partners focused on the emerging VoiceAI and communications-infrastructure category.