Vocus CTO out in restructure

Vocus chief technology officer Chris Deere has departed the business following a restructure that moved the technology team into a new group-wide transformation office.

Chris Deere

The telco today announced that it had created the transformation office to centralise all technology and transformation programs across the business.

It said an internal "in-depth review" had identified a need to ensure "all capital and opex allocation is appropriately matched against group-wide priorities and that resources are managed effectively".

The office will be headed by a new executive that reports directly into group CEO Geoff Horth. Vocus is currently recruiting for the role and expects to make an appointment before the end of the financial year.

The restructure has resulted in the departure of CTO Chris Deere, who had worked for the business in various management roles, including as deputy CEO, for four years.

Deere joined Vocus in 2013 when he sold his Ipera business to the company. He took up the CTO role in March 2016 following the company's merger with rival M2, looking after all technology aspects of the joint group.

His technology function has now been moved under the new transformation office, with the exception of the data centre team, which will sit in the telco's enterprise group.

Deere was offered a position reporting into the new transformation chief, but declined. His previous reporting line as CTO had been to the CEO.

The CTO's direct reports have been informed of the changes, and the remainder of the team will be told in the coming days, Vocus said.

The telco did not rule out reintroducing the CTO position in the future.

The transformation office is expected only to be a short-term arrangement of under two years to handle integration of the telco's myriad acquisitions - the most recent of which was its $861 million buy of Nextgen Networks.

Vocus confirmed the office would not be an ongoing arrangement.

The telco plans to review the structure and requirements of the business once its integration efforts are complete.

It's the latest change to an in-flux leadership team that originated with the departure of Vocus founder James Spenceley and board member Tony Grist last October.

The pair exited following a failed leadership coup that had attempted to oust CEO Geoff Horth.

Vocus also today permanently appointed Michael Simmons to the role of head of enterprise and wholesale. He had been acting in the position since Matt Hollis left in December to join Superloop.

The telco said it would release detail about the new transformation office's projects at its investor day in June