Telstra Wholesale refutes critics with new appointments

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 23 November 2005 15:43

IT Industry - Strategy

Telstra Wholesale has made a number of senior executive appointments saying they indicate that rumours of its demise are greatly exaggerated.

Announcing the appointments, group managing director Deena Shiff, claimed: "The wholesale business continues to experience steady growth guided by strong business disciplines. In fact, we have a full slate of major commercial negotiations underway now and spilling over into the New Year."

She said the new appointments - mostly internal promotions - would "ensure we are properly resourced to meet the expectation of our customers about our service and commercial execution capabilities."

Glenn Osborne has been appointed head of sales. He was previously director of global data sales in Telstra's international wholesale carrier joint venture, Reach. His deputy will be Jules Boyd.

While at Reach Osborne is credited with leading the global data sales team to exceed 2004 revenue target by more than 10 percent after three consecutive years of below target achievement under previous sales management and in an earlier national sales role with having achieved a 60 percent increase in revenue from Australian based carriers and service providers while reducing overall supply costs by 30 percent for connectivity services and network/IT support services.

"The Sales teams will continue to be responsible for deal management, account management, revenue, opportunity identification, account planning, contract lifecycle management and will manage the customer relationships in the wholesale business," Shiff said.

The Marketing group has been expanded with the appointment of Warwick Broxom to the newly-created position of head of marketing & commercial, reporting to Shiff. He will have overall responsibility for marketing, sales operations and commercial analysis. Marketing will continue to be headed by Mari Vahanissi. Sales Operations will continue to be lead by Paul Tsiknas.

In other changes, the broadband enablement functions will be merged into Broadband Access, reporting to Martine Rumsey and Simon Chodzniesner will take on the role of business planning.