Huawei Australia to appoint local, independent directors

Stuart Corner
Monday, 04 April 2011 13:49

IT Industry - Strategy

The Australian subsidiary of Chinese telecoms vendor, Huawei, has announced plans to 'Australianise' its board of directors with the addition of three independent Australian members.

They will join an as yet unspecified number of local, regional and head office Huawei executives to create the board, whose make-up will be announced in six to eight weeks time.

Huawei said it had enlisted executive search firm Egon Zehnder to "engage with a list of high-profile Australian leaders with proven experience in politics and the business community, with the view to holding the first meeting of the board of directors in mid-2011."

Huawei Australia government and public affairs director, Jeremy Mitchell, said: "This announcement is a landmark event for Huawei on a global level, being the first time that the company has established a localised board of directors anywhere in the world."

He added: "Huawei now employs more than 400 people in Australia, 80 percent of them locals, with that figure set to increase to over 600 by year's end. With such strong ties to the Australian market, it was only natural that the company would enlist a number of high-profile Australians to help steer the company's local direction."

Huawei Australia has also released its own 2010 corporate report, ahead of Huawei's global 2010 report. While it is predominantly a review of the company's deals and achievements during the year, it does give some financial details.

In it CFO Brian Hoppe said: "Huawei Australia has reported revenues of $171 million for 2010, representing a 29 percent increase on revenues for 2009. We secured a number of important new contracts in 2010 and overall Huawei achieved a year-on-year increase in sales orders of 35 percent in the Australian market, leaving us with a strong order backlog position going into 2011.

"I am also pleased to report that in 2010 Huawei achieved record sales figures for our Devices division, with a series of successes including the Pocket Wi-Fi with Vodafone, the Optus Mini Wi-Fi, and T-Touch Tab with Telstra."