Optus snags Telstra exec to lead satellite and wholesale division

Optus has announced poaching Stuart Bird from his position at Telstra to fill the role of Optus Wholesale and Satellite MD.

Under the role, Bird will oversee products, operations, service delivery, sales, and marketing across the satellite and wholesale businesses, including across Optus' wholesale National Broadband Network (NBN) offering.

"With his strong track record in sales and revenue growth, and a deep knowledge of fixed and mobile products, Stuart is well placed to cement Optus' position as Australia's market leader in both wholesale and satellite services," Optus CEO Allen Lew said.

"His focus will be to deliver growth from our wholesale and satellite businesses by expanding Optus' wholesale NBN offering, delivering a competitive suite of mobile products and services for our wholesale partners, and expanding our satellite customer base across Australasia."

Bird was most recently Telstra's executive director of Home and Business Products, having previously served stints as an executive director of Fixed Products and Services; director of Fixed Broadband and Bundled Products and Services; director of Prepaid Mobile Products and Services; and GM of Mobile Strategy and Business Performance.

Bird had joined Telstra after filling the roles of head of Marketing Operations and head of Marketing Planning at Vodafone Australia.

On his appointment, Bird called Optus a "world-class brand" and labelled its parent company Singtel a "truly global company".

"I look forward to leading the team as it continues to build on Optus' great partnerships and superior communications and technology foundations," Bird said.

Bird was appointed following the retirement of former lead Robert Parcell last month.

Optus, which upgraded its wholesale fibre network back in 2015 to be capable of 1Gbps speeds, also offers wholesale services such as Cloud-N, a pay-as-you-go software-defined networking solution, and Internet of Things, machine-to-machine, and GPS applications and services for wholesale customers.

It began offering its wholesale residential NBN product through all 121 points of interconnect (POIs) in July last year, and in January launched wholesale access to NBN's hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) network.

Optus also provides wholesale satellite services for many companies and services, including for Virgin Australia's in-flight Wi-Fi service; developer and operator Aeeris' Early Warning Network; and Mobile Health NZ's rural connectivity program.

Its satellite division owns the highest number of satellites covering Australia and New Zealand, with five satellites in orbit providing coverage to the region.