Optima undergoes management restructure

Australian OEM Optima ICM has appointed Douglas Wong as its new managing director, following former MD Cornel Ung's decision to move into the role of executive chairman of the board.

Wong was previously a non-executive director at the company. Previous chairman, Scott Brown would remain on the board as a non-executive director.

The Optima board proposed -- subject to shareholder approval -- the issuing of 10 million options valued at 20 cents each to Wong that are not exercisable before 12 months and thereafter exercisable up to three years and also subject to performance targets set by the board.

The company has also appointed Justin Taylor as chief financial officer and company secretary following the resignation of Pipvide Tang. Taylor joined the company in April 2004, an Optima statement said.

Speaking to CRN, Ung said he wanted to spend more time on strategic direction of the company and product development. Ung said since the company went public two years ago the management structure was still thin. “So we need to corporatise it,” he said.

Wong would put the company on a “fast track to corporatisation”, he said. Optima expected to reach annual sales revenue of $300 million by 2007. It was current doing around $120 million per annum, Ung said.

In 1996, Wong was appointed as managing director at Acer Computer Australia. He also worked for KPMG in Brisbane as a corporate advisor and had been an adviser to Optima since 2000. “He helped the company to list on the stock exchange in 2002,” Ung said.

Wong was appointed as a non-executive director on the Optima board last year.