Alarm Over Telecom Move to Auckland

By PULLAR-STRECKER Tom; ALLEN, Sue

POSITIVELY Wellington Business will meet the city council this week to discuss making an approach to Telecom over its announcement that its next chief executive is likely to be based in Auckland rather than in Wellington.

Telecom chairman Wayne Boyd said on Friday that he hoped and “expected” the company’s new chief executive would live in Auckland, but said that did not necessarily mean its head office would also head north.

Telecom’s present chief executive, Theresa Gattung, lives in Wellington, where the company is believed to employ about 2000 of its 6500-strong New Zealand workforce.

Ms Gattung will stand down from the job at the end of June.

Wellington is also home to two contenders for her job — chief financial officer Marko Bogoievski and chief technology officer Mark Ratcliffe.

Telecom employs more staff in Auckland, where Mr Boyd lives, along with chief operating officers Kevin Kenrick and Simon Moutter, who are both also contenders for the top job.

Telecom spokesman Phil Love said it was important that the chief executive was based “where the vast majority of customers and suppliers are located, and Auckland is New Zealand’s commercial centre”.

“The current chief executive spends most of her time between Wellington, Auckland and Sydney and we’d expect that practice to continue.”

Telecom would continue to have a significant presence in Wellington, Mr Love said.

Positively Wellington Business chief executive Philip Lewin said the economic development agency would prefer Telecom’s chief executive to be based in Wellington.

However, it was a commercial decision that the board of Telecom would make.

“The main thing is we want to make sure if we can, in partnership with Wellington City Council and other councils in the region, that firms like Telecom don’t forsake the region, because it has so much to offer in terms of smart people and broadband and its central position in New Zealand.”

It would be very disappointing if having a chief executive in Auckland heralded a shift of Telecom’s headquarters, Mr Lewin said.

“I think they would be leaving behind some fantastic technical, marketing and sales people here in Wellington.

“It is the same story when any firm that is knowledge-based and technology-driven looks at relocating, and I would hope and expect they are well aware of that.”

Mr Lewin said he hoped a new regional strategy would be ratified by councils in the Wellington region within the next three weeks.

“That is the context in which discussions with big companies will be taking place.

“It is about offering an even more user-friendly environment for companies such as Telecom to be based in and we will be doing our very best to keep them here.”

Company insiders said Telecom had already moved most of the jobs it could move to Auckland.

Previous attempts to entice staff to relocate to Auckland had been unsuccessful and the company was likely to tread carefully, considering that it was struggling to fill 300 vacancies throughout New Zealand, even while in the midst of restructuring.#paraLast year, oil company Caltex culled its Wellington head office and moved all 100 jobs to Auckland, and days earlier Mobil moved 140 call centre jobs to Bangkok.

They follow several banks and insurance companies that have already shifted north.

(c) 2007 Dominion Post. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.