Onecom hands co-founder Aaron Brown the group chief executive role
The business communications group, which has made 14 acquisitions in five years, is putting its integration push and a new agentic AI platform in the hands of its operations chief
- Customers: more than 65,000 UK businesses, according to Onecom
- Staff: over 900 people across 16 UK locations
- Backers: LDC and Ares Management
Promoting the person already running operations puts execution ahead of a new strategy, which is what a buy-and-build group needs once the deals start to outnumber the finished integrations. Staff and customers of the acquired firms are likely to see systems and teams brought together faster. Halo is the bigger test: it asks a company built on business communications to sell AI agents, and that outcome now sits with Brown.
“He combines strong operational leadership with a clear vision for where the market is heading.”Darren Ridge, outgoing group chief executive, Onecom
Onecom, which puts its annual revenue at approximately £220m, has appointed co-founder Aaron Brown as group chief executive officer from 1 May 2026, the company announced on 30 April. He succeeds Darren Ridge, who returns to a non-executive director role on the board.
Brown and Ridge founded Onecom in 2013 through the merger of Premier Telecom and Business Phones Direct. Brown came back to the business as chief operating officer in June 2025 and has increasingly run its day-to-day operations since; Onecom says the appointment formalizes that structure.
His brief, according to the company, is to deepen integration across the businesses it has acquired, which include Olive Communications, Gradwell Communications and Matrix IT, to scale its managed IT services and to keep leading consolidation in the UK business communications and IT services market.
The appointment came a day after Onecom launched Halo, a platform for businesses to deploy AI agents that handle voice, messaging and operational workflows. The company describes it as a significant new growth engine.
Sources
- Onecom, “Onecom appoints Aaron Brown as Group Chief Executive Officer”, press release, 30 April 2026. https://www.onecom.co.uk/news/onecom-appoints-aaron-brown-as-group-chief-executive-officer
- Onecom, “Onecom launches Halo, a first-of-a-kind agentic AI platform empowering businesses to deploy autonomous digital workforces”, press release, 29 April 2026. https://www.onecom.co.uk/news/onecom-launches-halo-a-first-of-a-kind-agentic-ai-platform-empowering-businesses-to-deploy-autonomous-digital-workforces
