[News] Chris Quin of Spark Leaves
Chris Quin, CEO Spark Home, Mobile & Business, has decided to leave the company by mid-year to attain his next leadership opportunity. Chris has been with the company for over 20 years and has achieved all I [Simon Moutter, Managing Director of Spark New Zealand] could have asked of him over the last two years. By any measure, Chris has done a consistently terrific job in a range of executive roles at Spark New Zealand and Telecom/Gen-i before that.
After a period as Acting Telecom CEO, Chris agreed when I re-joined the company in 2012 to move over to our Home, Mobile & Business Division with a brief to build a more customer inspired, competitive and successful core business. The results are very apparent.
Given our progress and this change in leadership, it’s now time to prepare for the next phase of strategic execution in FY16 and beyond. As outlined above, our focus will shift from re-setting the foundation of the company to building upon this foundation in pursuit of growth.
One important element of this process will be integrating the Turnaround Programme into the businesses so that the performance improvement mind-set becomes business-as-usual by June 2015. With the Turnaround Programme coming to its end, a new Strategic Programme – “Digital First” – will be set up over the next few months to centrally architect and steer the ongoing delivery of the digital transformation of our business. Our aim will be to create New Zealand’s leading digital services platform and suite of digital applications intended to fuel market growth.
In support of these business changes, we will be making a few changes to the Spark New Zealand Leadership Team accountabilities and transitioning smoothly the succession of leadership in our largest trading Division.
- Jason Paris, GM Spark Home, Mobile & Business, will be taking over the reins from Chris as CEO Spark Home, Mobile & Business from 1 July 2015. Jason has been with the company for over three years and has been instrumental in our improved performance. As a leader in the rebranding to Spark, and recognising his status as one of the country’s best marketing executives, he is the right person to build the Spark brand from the successful launch last year and to position Spark at the heart of enabling the digital future for all New Zealanders.
- Rod Snodgrass, CEO Spark Ventures, will take accountability for the new Digital First Programme in conjunction with his existing accountability for Spark Ventures. Rod is our leading thinker on digital business and the capability he has built in the Ventures Division will add real depth to the programme and its intended outcomes.
- Jolie Hodson, Chief Financial Officer, will take on some operational business activities in conjunction with her existing CFO accountabilities, with the now more mature Skinny and Big Pipe businesses ready to move outside Spark Ventures and report directly into her with effect from 1 February 2015. This will maintain high level focus on our multi-brand market strategy at the same time as creating room for Rod to pick up the big Digital First Programme.
The roles of the remaining members of the Leadership Team remain unchanged.
