Alcatel-Lucent NBN lead Turner departs; O'Halloran steps in

Stuart Corner
Monday, 30 November 2009 10:45

IT Industry - Strategy

Alcatel-Lucent has named Sean O'Halloran to head up its NBN team to replace the first holder of the role, John Turner, who is leaving to pursue a private business venture.

O'Halloran will hold the title of vice president of the National Broadband Network (NBN) team. He was previously vice president of Alcatel-Lucent's Enterprise Group in Australia. Turner, who was appointed to the newly-created role in May , will stay on until the end of the year to assist with the transition.

Andrew Butterworth, managing director of Alcatel-Lucent Australia said "Sean has extensive leadership credentials across the enterprise and carrier markets and brings key sales, market and technical knowledge to the role. With over 20 years of industry experience, Sean has extensive senior executive experience in strategic sales, carrier and regulatory affairs and network engineering across both ANZ and Asia Pacific. He has worked with Telstra (Telecom Australia), Optus, MCI/Verizon and NEC."

Before joining Alcatel-Lucent, O'Halloran was group general manager, sales and marketing at NEC Australia. He told iTWire that while he would be "continuing on with the good work John and the team have done in positioning Alcatel-Lucent" the NBN team would be "entering a more formal sales phase with the NBN Co be looking at tenders in the near future."

He said that the Alcatel-Lucent NBN team would be putting on some sales people, but he declined to speculate on when the first tenders might appear.

O'Halloran, who will be based in Sydney, will head a core team of about two dozen split between Sydney and Melbourne, but he said the team could be expanded significantly on an as-needs basis.

The NBN team's most high profile initiative during the year was its YouTube video aimed squarely at a popular audience. O'Halloran said such public initiatives would continue.

"That was a good indication of the position Alcatel-Lucent wants to take...We have been trying to take a position that is broader [than Alcatel as supplier] in the industry and communicate to people that thee NBN is not just about faster Internet but all the applications we haven't thought of yet.

"You will see us going into several different areas, getting engaged in forums looking at eHealth etc. It is something we have done in other market and we will do that here."