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Telstra chief David Thodey reshuffles executive team

TELSTRA today announced its second major executive reshuffle in four months as chief executive David Thodey puts his mark on the company.

In a statement, Mr Thodey said the reorganisation will better align the company’s leadership structure and strategic priorities as the company looks to improve customer focus.

As flagged by The Weekend Australian, Telstra confirmed the group’s head of voice, broadband and media Justin Milne will leave the company on June 1 to pursue other opportunities.

Mr Milne will be replaced by Telstra executive JB Rousselot who becomes executive director of voice, broadband and media.

Among the other major changes, Gordon Ballantyne, who joins the company from Hewlett-Packard, has been appointed group managing director for Telstra Consumer and Channels, effective from June. He replaces Glenice Maclellan, who has resigned from Telstra due to personal reasons.

Kate McKenzie, formerly head of strategic marketing, will take on the newly created position of chief marketing officer, while Robert Nason’s role will be expanded to include corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions and the program office.

"This reorganisation is designed to get the right people and processes in place. It will enable us to better deliver Australians the services and products they want and to profitably grow our business domestically and internationally," Mr Thodey said.

The expansion of Mr Nason’s role gives him additional oversight of Telstra’s business as he works through a wide-ranging review of the company’s operations which seeks to cut out unnecessary costs and improve market competitiveness.

"We are completing five years of heavy investment in new and improved networks and technology. To fully leverage our position as a technology leader we now need to review our operating model to ensure we have the most efficient structures and processes in place,” Mr Thodey said.

"Robert’s work will help us significantly reduce costs and improve our customer satisfaction. Our company must remain agile and be able to respond quickly to the changing market conditions.”

Mr Thodey has also promoted Stuart Lee, who previously headed the program office, to group managing director where he will work directly with Mr Thodey on possible future models of the company’s structure in a new national broadband network world.

Legislation due to be revived at the next parliamentary sitting in May is threatening to split Telstra in two unless the company plays ball with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s plans to build a nationwide fibre-to-the-home network.

Telstra and the government are engaged in private negotiations about how the telco can participate in the $43 billion network, but both parties remain billions of dollars apart on how much financial compensation Telstra should receive to migrate its traffic to the NBN.