Profile: Bill Allan, non-executive chairman, Pinnacle Telecom

He will become non-executive chairman of telecoms minnow Pinnacle Telecom towards the end of next month, taking over from Graham Duncan, the former chief executive of Atlantic Telecom. Duncan set up Pinnacle in Dalkeith in February 2002, just four months after Atlantic Telecom's spectacular collapse. Both men experienced the highs and lows of the telecoms bubble a decade ago.

Though Allan has let it be known that he doesn't intend to speak publicly until he formally takes up his post, the announcement ends a long spell in the shadows.

During his reign at Thus he was never afraid to speak his mind but has been uncharacteristically quiet in the months since the company succumbed to an unsolicited takeover offer from Cable & Wireless in May 2008. It led to Allan's resignation in October of that year.

Since then he has remained firmly off the radar, and is assumed to have spent most of his time at home with his family in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

The youngest son of a merchant navy engineer, he grew up in Greenock. Surrounded by the shipbuilding community along the Clyde, he decided at a young age that he wanted to do something different with his life.

"I will never forget at the end of the working day, the tide of men running to get out of the shipyards, running to escape from it," he told one journalist in 2004.

While still at school he applied for a traineeship with Cable & Wireless, and at the age of 17 joined a group known as the "Fabulous 40". This selected intake was so named because the company intended that one of the youngsters should reach the highest level within its management ranks.

He spent his earliest days with Cable & Wireless at the company's academy in Porthcumo, near Land's End in Cornwall. Trained as an engineer, he began his rise up the ranks in an organisation which at that time had as much in common with the Foreign Office as it did with its private industry peers.

During his 26 years at Cable & Wireless, Allan worked in a variety of countries, including Bermuda, China, Russia and Yemen.

He says he was drawn to the company because it offered the potential for travel and adventure, something that Allan – who as a child enjoyed scouting and orienteering – would have found particularly appealing.

Noted for his ability to "go native" in any country where he was posted, he served as director for Cable & Wireless in north-east Asia between 1995 and 1997. He then took the role of chief executive of regional businesses, a posting that had him circumnavigating the globe on a monthly basis.

He was tapped up to run the company that would become known as Thus by Goldman Sachs, which was advising ScottishPower on plans for the demerger of its telecoms arm in 1999. He joined the Glasgow-based operation ahead of its flotation in November of that year, replacing founder Rod Matthews.

He became the longest-serving telecoms chief executive of that time, heading up the company for more than nine years. It would prove to be a roller-coaster adventure, with all the accompanying heights and plunges to be found in any respectable thrill ride.

The company's newly-listed shares surged on a wave of ecstatic expectations in the weeks following its listing, reaching an all-time high of 845p in March 2000. Thus was catapulted into the FTSE 100 with a market value of more than 2bn.

Shortly thereafter, the dotcom bubble burst, blowing away the paper value of every telecom and IT company in its wake.

Four years later, Allan would describe those events as a "horrible" period: "We were not prepared for the FTSE 100," he said. "Not geared up for any of it, and what happened after was even worse."

He ploughed on in his efforts to build up the business, battling along the way for the credit he believed Thus had been denied. A fierce defender of his company and the broader independent telecoms sector, Allan long maintained that the company's critics failed to understand either its strategies or the markets in which it operated.

Tall and trim, with a penchant for rattling off rapid-fire statistics and figures, he remained unabashedly upbeat about the prospects for Thus. He was also not afraid to speak his mind, and would fulminate at length against what he saw as a needlessly disruptive telecoms regulatory framework.

He attacked other threats head-on as well, complaining to the European Commission after Scottish Enterprise introduced its Project Atlas broadband strategy in 2002. Allan claimed it was an infringement of European competition rules, and eventually won some concessions from the project.

Though he never lost his fondness for Cable & Wireless as an organisation, Allan was also openly critical of his former employer's tactics and execution. Supporters said his willingness to attack stemmed from the fact that he believed Cable & Wireless was attempting to marginalise Thus. It was therefore undoubtedly a bitter pill when Thus was forced into the ownership of Cable & Wireless. Though a long-time advocate of the need for consolidation within the sector, he had always maintained that Thus would be "predator rather than prey", though he was criticised for what was regarded as an unwise – and ultimately abortive – move to gatecrash C&W's bid for Energis.

Where he goes now with Pinnacle remains to be seen. Like Thus, AIM-listed Pinnacle has yet to turn a profit, though chief executive Alan Bonner said last week that the company had broken into the black in recent months.

"2009 has been a transforming year that saw us build solid foundations," Bonner said in a statement. "From this base, we will follow our defined growth strategy to seek out well-priced and timely acquisitions."

ENOUGH OF THE QUIET LIFE

BORN in Greenock, Bill Allan joined Cable & Wireless as a trainee engineer at the age of 17. He worked with the company for 26 years.He became chief executive of what would become known as Thus in 1999, and led the company through a flotation in November of that year. Under Allan's leadership, the board of Thus resisted the takeover bid from Cable & Wireless before finally succumbing several months later, leading to Allan's resignation in October 2008. The previously outspoken and combative chief executive spent the ensuing 16 months leading a quiet life at home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, before announcing last week that he would become non-executive chairman of Scottish-based Pinnacle Telecom. Allan, 56, is married and has twin sons.