Morrow ditches three top NBN execs

Three top NBN Co executives will exit the company following a restructure initiated by Bill Morrow just one week after he joined the organisation as its new boss.

Chief technology officer Gary McLaren joined CFO Robin Payne and head of corporate services Kevin Brown to be shown the door at NBN Co.

Payne will stay on until a successor can be found, while McLaren and Brown will exit the organisation in July.

McLaren’s replacement as CTO will also no longer report directly into the chief executive. Instead, the CTO will be a direct report of chief operating officer Gred Adcock.

Brown’s former position of head of corporate services will be disbanded and split up: chief strategy officer JB Rousselout will take over Telstra negotiations and procurement will be taken over by the CFO.

Human resources will be taken over by new chief culture and transformation officer, Brad Whitcomb, who Morrow poached from Vodafone to fill the role.

Morrow joined the country's national broadband network builder last week. He replaced former NBN Co boss Mike Quigley, who retired last year.

Before joining NBN Co, Morrow spent the past two years working on rebuilding the troubled Vodafone Australia business - a task he has also taken on at NBN Co.

Prior to his official appointment Morrow had been engaged in discussions with NBN Co’s board of directors and executive committee members, as well as “various government offices”, he told staff today, to determine the critical issues the company needed to address in order to meet its objectives.

Morrow said he had identified five obvious issues at NBN Co, including a lack of alignment and clarity about the company’s goals, a confusing organisation structure resulting in unclear or redundant accountability, inadequate decision making and performance tracking, poor process management and a suboptimal workplace culture.

He said a new executive structure was needed to address the issue of a confusing organisation layout, resulting in the departure of the three executives.

"The intent of my early engagement was to understand the critical issues that we need to address in order to move quickly and seamlessly to the next stage of us ‘enabling the digital economy and closing the digital divide’," he told staff.

Morrow will conduct roadshows for staff throughout May to discuss the structural changes. He indicated there would be more restructuring announcements to come as NBN Co works to "get this right". 

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull this week gave NBN Co a new set of instructions to proceed with the Coalition Government's preferred multi-technology mix NBN.