Spark New Zealand names Grant McBeath customer director

Spark New Zealand has appointed Grant McBeath (pictured) as its new customer director on the company’s leadership “squad”, effective July 1.

McBeath will replace current customer director Jolie Hodson, who will become Spark’s chief executive from that date.

Commenting on McBeath’s appointment, Hodson said “he has a strong track record of building high performing teams and delivering for customers not only at Spark, but in his time in global executive roles in companies like Nokia.”

McBeath joined Spark in 2013 as general manager of sales for the consumer and SMB business, alongside acting for six months as CEO for Spark Home, Mobile and Business operations before becoming Channel Leader, Consumer and SMB when Spark adopted an “agile” restructuring program.

From July 1, Spark’s leadership “squad” will have eight members: Jolie Hodson (chief executive), Grant McBeath (customer director), David Chalmers (finance director/CFO),  Melissa Anastasiou (general counsel), Joe McCollum (HR director), Matt Bain (marketing director), Tessa Tierney (product director), and Mark Beder (technology director).

NTT appoints Kazuhiro Gomi CEO for new research unit

NTT Corp has appointed Kazuhiro Gomi as president and CEO of NTT Research Inc, a new unit the Japanese telco created on April 1.

Kazuhiro Gomi, who assumed the new roles on the same date, will continue to serve on the board of directors for NTT Communications and retain his current role as president and CEO of NTT America.

He joined NTT Corp in 1985 and took up several management positions across the group, including global business VP at NTT Communications and COO of NTT America before being promoted to president and CEO of NTT America in 2010.

According to NTT, the new research arm will focus on advanced R&D to further develop and accelerate research activities originating from NTT Laboratories in Japan.

NTT will launch laboratories-Quantum Science & Computing Laboratories, Cryptography & Information Security Laboratories, and Medical & Health Informatics Laboratories- in July, which will become the core of NTT Research.