Paul Geason to head Telstra Wholesale

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 11 June 2009 05:22

IT Industry - Strategy

Paul Geason, currently executive director, convergent sales at Telstra Enterprise and Government has been appointed group managing director, Telstra Wholesale.

He replaces Nerida Caesar who was named to the position in late March, taking over from Kate McKenzie who had just been made GMD strategic marketing. Caesar however had barely started in the position when she was made GMD Enterprise and Government in the wake of its then head, David Thodey, being promoted to CEO. Glenn Osborne has been acting GMD Wholesale, for the past month and will return to his position as executive director, Telstra Wholesale Sales.

On the day that Caesar's appointment was announced she was placed in the embarrassing position of having Telstra CFO, John Stanhope, dismiss Wholesale as "a declining business." He was addressing an investment conference in Hong Kong and setting out the likely impacts on Telstra of the soon-to-be-announced NBN, when he said: "This [Wholesale] is a $2.5b, declining business for us, but with over a billion dollars of wholesale voice and broadband access revenue that might come under threat."

Geason has been executive director, convergent sales at TE&G since returning to Telstra in August 2006. In this role, he has been responsible for the marketing and sale of voice, data, mobile and unified communications to Telstra's enterprise and government customers.

He was previously with Telstra between 1994 and 2005, holding positions in Telstra's legal division and in Telstra's product management teams. Prior to re-joining Telstra in 2006 he was senior vice president of sales at NetCracker Corporation in Boston in the United States responsible for the sale and distribution of telecom operating software to service providers and enterprise customers in North America, Europe and Australia.

Thodey said that Geason's experience dealing with complex customer solutions in his TE&G role was perfect preparation to lead the Telstra Wholesale team. "I have worked closely with Paul for the past three years and have seen at first hand his intellect, passion and ability to work in a multi-faceted customer environment.

"It is important that Telstra Wholesale operates in a transparent manner that gives comfort to our wholesale customers that they are being treated on the same basis as our retail units in terms of price and service. Paul is an executive who I am sure will maintain his focus on meeting the needs and expectations of our wholesale customers."

He added: "At a time when there is a regulatory review that could lead to changes within our industry, I will be working hard to ensure our wholesale customers continue to take advantage of the many opportunities that access to our reliable, world-class networks offers them."