NBN Co appoints first COO

Peter Dinham
Monday, 21 November 2011 11:24

IT People - People

NBN Co has appointed its first chief operating officer as it continues to build its executive team for the full-scale construction and Australia-wide roll-out of the national broadband network.

Ralph Steffens joins NBN Co as COO from the UK where, until recently, he was managing director service delivery, for the global telecommunications company, BT Group, headquartered in London.

Steffens will have overall responsibility for construction of the NBN as well as deployment planning, network operations and IT. He will be based in Sydney and report to CEO Mike Quigley, and formally start work at NBN Co at the end of this month.

At BT in the UK, the German-born Steffens presided over two major network rollouts across Europe and also oversaw the upgrade of Britain's broadband infrastructure. Prior to that, he worked for COLT Telecom, where he was responsible for delivering a 15,000km pan- European telecommunications network across 12 countries.

Commenting on Steffens' appointment, Mike Quigley said: 'as an experienced telecommunications executive who has presided over major network rollouts across Europe, Ralph is ideally suited to the role of overseeing this vital upgrade of Australia's telecommunications infrastructure.'

And, Steffens said he was proud to be joining a 'visionary project that is the envy of the world.' 

'Delivering high speed-broadband to every home and business across a continent the size of Australia represents an enormous challenge but the opportunities it will enable are endless. I'm genuinely excited about the ability to participate in the building of the NBN,' Steffens said.

The position of COO is one of a number of new posts announced by NBN Co in August in recognition of the business' transition from being a start-up focused on planning and design to a company capable of delivering the full-scale rollout of the NBN.

Over the next 12 months work is scheduled to begin constructing the NBN in towns and cities covering around 500,000 homes and businesses across Australia.