CFO Beaufret to depart NBN Co in management restructure

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 24 August 2011 22:38

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Jean-Pascal Beaufret, the CFO of NBN Co, who took the financial helm of the company charged with implementing the National Broadband Network under his former Alcatel Lucent boss Mike Quigley, will step down from his role in January.

 

Mr Beaufret was CFO of Alcatel Lucent globally, while Mike Quigley, now CEO of NBN Co, was President of the French telecoms giant during the period 2001 and 2006.

After both former Acatel executives were recruited to the top jobs by NBN Co, news broke of a bribery scandal that occurred in the Central American operations of Alcatel Lucent during their watch. The company was subsequently fined US$137 million by the US Department of Justice but neither Beaufret nor Quigley were ever implicated for any wrongdoing in the affair.

The departure of Mr Beaufret, who plans to return to his native France, is being positioned as a restructure to reflect the changing nature of NBN Co from a startup company to company fully engaged in preparing for a full scale rollout of its FttH network.

Under the restructure, in addition to seeking a new CFO from a list of global candidates, the role of chief operating officer will be created, as well as roles for government relations and marketing communications.

There will also increased duties for the current product development manager JIm Hassell, who will head up the sales team and will also notably be responsible for pricing of NBN services , which has been a sore point for at least some of NBN Co's customers.

Mike Quigley will remain at the helm during the next phase of the company's transformation.