Thodey shakes up Telstra to focus on products and marketing

Stuart Corner
Monday, 29 March 2010 08:38

IT Industry - Strategy

After a year in the job, Telstra CEO David Thodey, has moved to reshape the organisation, with a shakeup of the executive ranks and wheeling in a heavyweight exec from the UK to head up consumer and channels marketing.

Telstra says the changes consolidate the company's top executives into four main groups: customer sales and support; product and marketing innovation; operations; and corporate support.

Gordon Ballantyne, former vice president of HP's Personal Systems Group in the UK, has been named group managing director (GMD) of Telstra Consumer and Channels, with effect from June. He will have oversight of all of Telstra's consumer retail sales outlets, including T[life] stores.

Before joining HP, he founded and was director of Dell.com in Europe and also created Dell Ventures in Europe. Before that he was sales and service director and a member of the board of T-Mobile in the UK.

Thodey said: "Gordon Ballantyne is the right person for this critical position. He will lead our drive to win new customers and better serve existing customers in the consumer market. Gordon arrives at Telstra as we take our Next G mobile network to the next level in terms of speed, and as we introduce new fixed-line products such as T-Hub and T-Box.'

Ballantyne replaces acting GMD of Consumer and Channels, Glenice Maclellan. Telstra said she had resigned "after indicating for some time that she wished to leave the business for personal reasons. To ensure a smooth handover, she has agreed to stay at Telstra until after Mr Ballantyne's arrival."

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