Telstra to bring in 'customer CTO'

Telstra will appoint a “customer CTO” to work in its global enterprise and services (GES) division, focused on growing the size of the telco’s key accounts.

The “customer chief technologist” is expected to be “a seasoned CIO, CTO, chief architect, principal consultant or technical pre-sales lead”, who is “recognised in the Australian technology industry as a thought leader”.

But a spokesperson for the telco told iTnews that the role – which reports into head of customer technology Jacob Sims – “is not an executive position”.

“It’s a new technical consulting role within our GES sales area aimed at enhancing customer engagement,” a Telstra spokesperson said.

The spokesperson confirmed that the “customer CTO” would not pick up any responsibilities that previously fell under the remit of the telco’s full CTO role, most recently held by Vish Nandlall until he was let go in late May.

“We do not anticipate [the customer CTO role] incorporating any of the responsibilities of the role vacated by Vish Nandlall,” the spokesperson said.

Nandlall’s former remit is currently being handled by Philip Jones, Telstra’s executive director for global products and solutions, the spokesperson said.

The new customer CTO will work with senior account leads “to drive and influence strategy” and work with technical Telstra resources “to define and deliver a significant revenue and EBIT growth agenda" in Telstra's network application and services (NAS) portfolio.

Telstra’s NAS portfolio includes the carrier’s cloud offerings as well as managed network services, unified communications and similar products. It has been a significant growth engine for the carrier in recent years.

The “customer CTO” will be tasked with “generating, identifying and/or nurturing medium and long-term demand (6-24 months) that will contribute to substantial revenue growth on the account(s)”.