ITWire

Pacnet announced his departure is summary fashion saying: "Effective today, William L Barney is no longer serving as chief executive officer and the board of directors thank him for his service to Pacnet. A global search is underway for a permanent chief executive officer."

James Ousley, who was appointed as Pacnet's independent chairman at the start of the year, said: "Brett is a seasoned telecom executive...We are confident in his capabilities and commitment to lead Pacnet during this leadership transition and to play a pivotal role with the new CEO in furthering Pacnet's evolution into a leading regional player of cloud based data services."

He has been CFO for the past five years and is responsible for Pacnet's financial strategies, planning and operations and corporate finance initiatives. Prior to Pacnet, he held CFO positions at Pihana Pacific and MediaOne Group Asia Pacific.

Barney had run Pacnet and its predecessor for over a decade. He was promoted from being president of business services to be CEO of Asia Global Crossing in 2002 and lead the company through a near death experience later that year when majority shareholder Global Crossing reneged on a $US400m loan commitment.

The company was sold to a new company formed by China Netcom, Newbridge Capital and Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund and became Asia Netcom in 2003. In the ensuring years under his leadership, the company expanded its cable network, prospered and merged with Asian regional ISP Pacnet in 2008. It has since branched out into content delivery network and data centre services.

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