New Melbourne IT chief hungry for offshore revenue

Hnarakis' appointment ends a search that began back in July with the resignation of then chief exec Adrian Kloeden. Hnarakis had been Melbourne IT's general manager under Kloeden.

Hnarakis said he has been heavily involved in developing Melbourne IT strategy for the past two and a half years and has no plans for radical changes. "In many ways, it is going to be business as usual," he said

However, he said that Melbourne IT would place increasing importance on writing new international business. Overseas revenue already accounts for 60 percent of Melbourne IT's total, he said.

Hnarakis said he has developed personal relationships with many of Melbourne IT's large foreign partners, which he said he intends to further develop opportunities overseas.

However, he declined to detail what some of these opportunities might be. Melbourne IT's partners include Earthlink, Yahoo, Vario and NTT.

"The challenge is... to leverage these relationships with large global partners to develop other revenue opportunities," he said.

Aged 44, Hnarakis joined Melbourne IT in 2000 after a career in media and publishing, where he held a number of managing director positions at Murdoch publishing houses.

"Theo has initiated many of the strategic partnerships that we have announced over the past twelve months said Melbourne IT chairman Rob Stewart in a statement.

“He has demonstrated a strong commitment to the profitable growth of Melbourne IT and its development as a world leader in domain name registrations. We were delighted to find that the strongest candidate was one of our own executives,"

Hnarakis replaces Adrian Kloeden, who resigned from the CEO post in July to take a position as CEO with services firm Serco.