Dutch telecoms firm Odido, hit by February cyberattack, names new CEO

AMSTERDAM, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Dutch telecoms company Odido said on Wednesday it had promoted Chief Commercial Officer Tisha van Lammeren to be chief executive with immediate effect, replacing Søren Abildgaard, who has resigned after nearly 10 years at the helm.

A spokesperson said Abildgaard's departure was unrelated to a cyberattack disclosed in February that exposed the personal data of about 6 million customers.

"The reason is that Soren himself decided to tender his resignation and stop as CEO after nearly 10 years," the spokesperson said.

Abildgaard said in a brief statement that it had been a privilege to serve the company.

Odido, formerly T-Mobile Netherlands, competes with KPN and VodafoneZiggo in the Dutch market and is owned by investors led by private equity group Apax.

In the February hack, criminal group ShinyHunters published stolen data after the company refused to pay a ransom. Customer information including names, email addresses, birth dates, bank account numbers and passport numbers was exposed.

Dutch police backed the company's refusal to pay a ransom, but Odido faced criticism from customers for both the breach and its communication after the attack.

In an interview with national broadcaster NOS in May, Van Lammeren said that "customers do hold it against us that we were so silent".

She said the company had learned the full extent of the breach only over several weeks.

"If I look back on it, I think that we should have said something after all, even about the things we didn't know," she said.

(Reporting by Toby Sterling. Editing by Mark Potter)