Vodafone New Zealand to get new CEO in November
Russell Stanners will step down from his role as Vodafone New Zealand CEO by the end of October, the company announced on Tuesday, ending a 17-year stint at the telco.
Stanners joined the telco in 2002 as its first enterprise director.
Vodafone Regional CEO for Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific (AMAP) Vivek Badrinath praised Stanners for his contribution.
"Since his appointment as CEO in 2005, Russell has transformed the company from a consumer mobile business to a digital technology leader providing fixed, TV, converged, and mobile services to more than two million customers across New Zealand," Badrinath said.
Replacing Stanners will be Jason Paris, who joined Vodafone this year from fellow NZ telco Spark and is currently its AMAP director for convergence acceleration.
In recent times, Vodafone NZ has picked up Farmside, the rural broadband and satellite arm of small carrier TeamTalk, across a pair of transactions valued at NZ$13 million, and earlier this month signed an agreement that would allow Kogan Mobile to use its network to launch in New Zealand.
Last week, Vocus and Vodafone NZ formed a joint venture to work on unbundling the New Zealand government's Ultra-Fast Broadband fibre network in a bid to take customers away from Chorus and local fibre companies (LFCs).
"The joint venture will involve scoping, designing, and investing in unbundling the fibre local loops of the four LFCs, with a view to providing wholesale fibre products to the retail market in competition with LFCs," Vocus and Vodafone said on Tuesday morning.
During Stanners tenure, Vodafone New Zealand and Sky Network Television announced in mid-2016 that they would attempt a NZ$3.44 billion merger, which would have seen Sky pick up all Vodafone NZ shares. However, the plan was nixed by regulators, and despite the companies gaining approval from the Overseas Investment Office, the idea was shelved in June last year.
Related Coverage
Vocus and Vodafone NZ announce UFB fibre unbundling joint venture
A Vocus-Vodafone joint venture will see the companies work on unbundling the UFB fibre network in New Zealand and begin offering 10Gbps broadband services by January 2020.
Vodafone NZ pays NZ$3m for remainder of rural broadband provider
After acquiring 70 percent of rural broadband and satellite provider Farmside for NZ$10 million a year ago, Vodafone NZ has paid NZ$3 million for the remainder.
Vodafone NZ demos 5G with Nokia
Nokia and Vodafone NZ are demonstrating a series of use cases across a 5G network this week in Auckland using the networking giant's platforms.
Vodafone NZ expands government services
Vodafone NZ has boosted its telecommunications-as-a-service offerings for the New Zealand government, adding more managed security services along with a new fixed connectivity service.
Vodafone NZ launches 4K TV service to fibre customers
Kiwi subscribers will need to sign up for one or two-year contracts at an as-yet-unknown price.