NBN Co appoints new chief technology officer

NBN Co has appointed two new executives to its ranks, including a new chief technology officer, after showing three of its top executives the door two months ago.

Dennis Steiger

Under a restructure kicked off by NBN Co CEO Bill Morrow just one week after he started at the network builder as its new boss, CTO Gary McLaren, chief financial officer Robin Payne, and head of corporate services Kevin Brown were given their marching orders.

McLaren and Brown were to leave the company in July, while Payne was to stay on until a replacement could be found. Brown’s former position of head of corporate services was disbanded.

Successors for both McLaren and Payne were named today.

Dennis Steiger will join the organisation as NBN Co's new CTO in late July, while Stephen Rue will become the company's new CFO, beginning 1 July.

Steiger was most recently the CTO at Canadian telco Shaw Communications.

Since the April executive restructure, the role of the CTO no longer reports directly to the CEO. Upon Steiger's commencement he will instead report to chief operating officer Greg Adcock.

Rue spent ten years as the CFO at News Limited, and was recently a director at both Foxtel and REA Group. 

In April Morrow said he would need to address five obvious issues at NBN Co - a lack of aligment and clarity about the company's goals; a confusing organisational structure and unclear accountability; inadequate decision making and performance tracking; poor process management; and a less than ideal workplace culture.

He said a new executive structure was needed to address the confusing organisation layout, and signalled there would be further restructuring to come.