Executives

Michael (Mike) Quigley
Chief Executive Officer and Director

With the board of NBN Co, Michael Quigley has overall responsibility for fulfilling the Commonwealth's policy goal of building and operating a ubiquitous, high-speed broadband network across Australia to enable the future of online services and telecommunications.

He joined NBN Co a few years after returning to Australia following his retirement from the French telecommunications giant, Alcatel. He started his 36 year career in Alcatel research and development, and progressively took on more senior executive positions including being President and Chief Executive Officer of Alcatel USA.

In 2003, Mr Quigley became President of Alcatel's Fixed Communications Group in Paris, responsible for infrastructure products, including network switches and optical communications systems. In 2005, he was appointed Alcatel's President and Chief Operating Officer, overseeing 55,000 staff and operations in 130 countries.

Mr Quigley was educated at the University of NSW and graduated with a Bachelor of Science majoring in Mathematics and Physics, and a Bachelor of Engineering in Telecommunications.

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Kevin Brown
Head of Corporate

Kevin Brown is responsible for supply management, procurement, commercial strategy and the management of NBN Co's Definitive Agreements with Telstra and Optus, as well as overseeing the company's human resources, legal and facilities functions.

Mr Brown was formerly Executive General Manager, People at Qantas for 8 years and a member of its executive committee. Prior to joining Qantas in 2001, Mr Brown held a number of senior executive positions at Nortel Networks, based in the USA, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and Australia. His roles included Vice President, Business Development, Asia Pacific as well as global responsibilities for human resources.

He has a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney, a Bachelor of Social Science from the University of New England, and an MBA from the University of Sydney.

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Kieren Cooney
Chief Communications Officer

Mr Cooney manages the company's government, media and stakeholder relations functions. He will also oversee a nationwide consumer information campaign covering the migration from copper- and HFC-based telecommunications networks to the fibre-based NBN.

Mr Cooney has held senior executive positions across the telecommunications industry, most recently as Chief Marketing Officer at Telecom New Zealand. He has also worked for Vodafone, marketing software and services business Touchpoint and eVentures.

Mr Cooney has a BSc Computer Science & Mathematics from Auckland University.

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Mike Kaiser
Head of Quality

Mike Kaiser is responsible for implementing a comprehensive quality framework across the company including the continuous improvement of processes and products.

He was previously NBN Co's Principal, Government Relations and External Affairs.

Mr Kaiser has extensive experience within Government having served Premiers in NSW and Queensland as Chief of Staff. He has also worked with the private sector in a consultancy capacity on the delivery of major infrastructure projects.

Mr Kaiser holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) and a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Queensland.

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Caroline Lovell
Head of Regulatory Affairs and Industry Analysis

Caroline Lovell is responsible for NBN Co's engagement with communications industry regulators on the formulation and implementation of the regulatory regime applying to NBN Co; the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Australian Media and Communications Authority and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman; and for engagement with NBN Co's customers and other stakeholders on communications regulatory matters.

Ms Lovell also oversees the company's revenue forecasting and industry analysis functions, and the Industry Engagement Team which is responsible for managing NBN Co's commercial supply arrangements with customers (including the Wholesale Broadband Agreement).

Ms Lovell joined NBN Co in July 2010, as Principal, Regulatory Affairs. Prior to joining NBN Co, Ms Lovell was a partner of law firm Clayton Utz, where she was the joint head of the firm's Telecommunications, Media and Technology practice and advised on a wide range of projects for government and private sector clients.

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Gary McLaren
Chief Technology Officer

Gary McLaren is responsible for defining the technology requirements of the National Broadband Network.

Mr McLaren has 25 years experience in the telecommunications industry with senior engineering roles at Telstra and Siemens. He was a member of the Senior Management Team at Request DSL which successfully rolled out one of Australian's first competitive DSL broadband networks between 2000 and 2004, before the company was merged with PowerTel.

From 2004, Mr McLaren provided consulting services to various companies in the telecommunications and IT sectors with an emphasis on commercialisation of new technologies. These companies included Optus, Telecom Fiji and Telecom NZ-owned AAPT.

He joined NBN Co in 2009 from his role as lead consultant working on Australia's National Broadband Network project for the Communications Alliance, the self-regulatory body responsible for developing guidelines and policy for the Australian telecommunications industry.

He has degrees in Engineering and Law from the University of Melbourne.

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Robin Payne
Chief Financial Officer

Mr Payne is responsible for overseeing financial aspects of NBN Co's business activities.

He joined NBN Co in 2009 as General Manager of Planning & Development and was instrumental in developing the company's initial Corporate Plan.

The following year he was appointed the company's lead negotiator on the Definitive Agreements with Telstra that were concluded in March 2012 and which unlock the infrastructure that will enable the large-scale rollout of the fibre optic network.

Mr Payne worked for a decade at KPMG in the UK and Australia, specialising in banking and finance. Subsequently, he spent a further 10 years at Macquarie Bank in project and structured finance for the investment banking division and helped pioneer the bank's expansion into South East Asia. He was a co-founder of the Asia-Pacific digital media company, Anytime PTE.

Mr Payne holds an honours degree in economics from University of Cambridge.

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Ralph Steffens
Chief Operating Officer

Ralph Steffens joined NBN Co in November 2011, leading the design, planning and construction of the National Broadband Network.

His accountabilities include network operations, service management as well as business and operational support systems. His primary aim is to build the National Broadband Network as quickly as possible, at the highest quality and most optimal cost.

Most recently, Mr Steffens spent eight years at BT Group plc, with four of those years as Managing Director Service Delivery, responsible for the end-to-end service management and all network planning and implementation activities on a global basis. He led more than 4,000 people in this role.

Prior to that, he was Director of Network Engineering for COLT Group S.A., a pan-European company that successfully built metropolitan fibre networks across 32 cities in 13 European countries, and a long-distance fibre transit network covering 15,000 kilometres.

Mr Steffens holds a Diploma in Engineering majoring in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications from Fachhochshule Darmstadt, University of Applied Sciences, Hesse, Germany.

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