Confident about the prospect of a successful demerger from Telecom New Zealand (ASX:TEL), Chorus has already announced its proposed new executive management team.
The new team includes:
- Ewen Powell as chief information officer, who will be responsible for technology, enterprise infrastructure and managing the systems platforms that supports business and customer operations;
- Ed Beattie as general manager property and networking operation;
- Sara Broadhurst as general manager human resources;
- Chris Dyhrberg as general manager network build;
- Irene Lovejoy as executive assistant to the CEO;
- Vanessa Oakley has been appointed as general counsel and company secretary;
- Nick Woodward as general manager customer services; and
- Brian Hall, the current financial controller, will act as the chief financial officer until the role is formally filled.
A general manager of sales and marketing is also yet to be filled.
The demerger of Chorus from Telecom will create a national fixed-line access network infrastructure operator. The demerger will also allow Chorus to participate under the NZ government’s Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) initiative.
The news of the management team selection follows just a day after Chorus kicked off construction of the UFB initiative following its contract win in May to deploy fibre in 24 of the 33 candidate areas.
The telco was finally selected by the company overseeing the rollout of the New Zealand National Broadband Network (NBN) equivalent, Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH), to take part in the project following months of negotiations.
To date, fibre optic cables have been deployed to Albany in Auckland, with more work scheduled to begin in Ashburton, Blenheim, Dunedin, Masterton, Napier-Hastings, Palmerston North, Rotorua, Taupo and Wellington by December.
Chorus will deploy and operate the network build to 69.4 per cent of the network’s coverage, with Enable Networks, Northpower Limited and Ultrafast Fibre Limited to cover the remaining 30.6 per cent by 2019. Initial rollout will focus on connecting schools, businesses and health premises.
Newly appointed Chorus chief executive, Mark Ratcliffe, said the network will reach 43,000 homes and businesses across the country and deliver 200 schools a fibre connection by July 2012.
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