iiNet founder Malone joins NBN board as Hackett leaves

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news The Federal Government has appointed iiNet founder to the board of the NBN company as a non-executive director, replacing Internode founder Simon Hackett, with the change to commence immediately.

Hackett, who founded Internode and substantially led the company through its growth into one of Australia’s ISPs, joined the NBN board in November 2013, as the dust settled on the sale of Internode to iiNet, which had emerged as a larger ISP. The Internode founder has made relatively few comments about the NBN during his period on the NBN company’s board, although he was vocal about the project beforehand.

Like Hackett, Malone is one of the most high-profile figures within Australia’s telecommunications industry, courtesy of the several decades he spent founding iiNet and then growing the company to become one of Australia’s largest ISPs. It was eventually sold to TPG late last year.

In a statement, NBN chairman Ziggy Switkowski welcomed Malone, saying: “Michael is a long-standing and respected member of the telecommunications industry. His experience will complement the diverse backgrounds and skillsets that exist on today’s NBN Board and help fill the gap created by the departure of Mr Hackett.”
 
“I look forward to Michael bringing new perspectives to the board table, keeping NBN focused upon our customers, valuing innovation, and successfully completing the network build ,” Switkowski added.
 
Malone’s experience also includes building new companies such as the cybersecurity firm, Diamond Cyber, and board appointments at a range of listed technology and media companies including SpeedCast Limited, Superloop and Seven West Media.

Malone has Bachelor of Science and a Post Graduate Diploma of Education, Mathematics, from the University of Western Australia.
 
The NBN company said Hackett had decided to resign from the NBN Board to focus fully on his increased responsibilities and active involvement in ASX-listed company, Redflow Limited. Mr Hackett is the largest shareholder of Redflow Limited and has recently been appointed to the position of Executive Chairman.

Switkowski acknowledged Hackett’s contribution, saying: “Simon has been a critical member of the NBN Board, bringing deep knowledge of the retail service provider business and a creative entrepreneurial mindset to our deliberations. There are few such individuals who match the specific needs of NBN so well at this stage of its development. We thank Simon for his active and valued contribution since his appointment in November 2013”.
 
Mr Hackett lauded the achievements of the NBN Board saying: “It is with a sense of regret that I must bid farewell to the NBN team and to my colleagues on the NBN Board. I will greatly miss the experience of being in the midst of something so very pivotal, in a space I care about so much. It has been a privilege to be a part of such an endeavour and I would jump at the chance to return if future opportunity should arise.”

opinion/analysis
I consider Malone an ideal candidate to replace Hackett on the NBN board.

Image credit: iiNet

34 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks for trying to change the mindset of those wasteful copper zealots at NBN Simon. All the best with Redflow!

  2. “Mr Hackett lauded the achievements of the NBN Board saying”

    I believe I’m going to throw up

    • Did you read Quigley’s letter when he left? (sure he defended himself when the pundits turned on him after) He was quite positive and upbeat as well.

      You don’t leave the board of a GBE/Major Corp and trash talk on your way out it’ll only ever come across as unprofessional.

  3. The only good thing i can say about this is that MM has a wealth of experience with large scale fibre implementation…

      • @s one of the all time great articles. Budde, Tucker & Gregory spouting from the sidelines their uninformed fibre fantasy.

        Towards the end actual commerical experience quoted, stating the obvious FTTN “faster to deploy, cheaper”.

        We could now discuss other realworld examples and their relative performance v Conroy’s NBNCo (US’s AT&T, Ireland’s Eircom, Belgium’s Belgacom) but I’m warned providing such information is “harmful to the discussion”.

        Anyway welcome aboard Hackett. Experience and knowledge not well respected here, substitute abuse, but a few us will read your contributions.

        • @s one of the all time great articles. Budde, Tucker & Gregory spouting from the sidelines their uninformed fibre fantasy

          Uninformed? Seriously? Right, the owner of one of the the largest telecommunications research sites on the internet and two of the foremost researchers in the field in Australia are “uninformed”….right…

          Towards the end actual commerical experience quoted, stating the obvious FTTN “faster to deploy, cheaper”.

          And yet it hasn’t been yet faster, and it’s costs keep blowing out…

          We could now discuss other realworld examples and their relative performance v Conroy’s NBNCo (US’s AT&T, Ireland’s Eircom, Belgium’s Belgacom) but I’m warned providing such information is “harmful to the discussion”.

          Yes, we all know what “Richard Facts”™ are like.

          • Yes Richards facts
            Fttn 2k roll out a week or 8k if you count FTTB is apparently faster than the 10k-15k they where doing with FTTP

        • There’s only one person here sprouting fantasy…and that is the one who espouses the past as our future and laughably, narcissistically suggests this complete fucking farce known as MTM was as if his own..

          Time to move, like Simon Richard, and leave the future to those with actual foresight…

          Thanks for popping in.

    • Yes. Added to his abilities in setting up a nation-wide backbone to support his retail clients/customers in the face of so much competition.

      I’m still not sure how David Teoh was able to pay so little for this massive network.

  4. Like any government department and organisation, Cronyism is ripe in NBNco.
    Mates looking after mates, situation normal at GimpCo.

    • Seems to me, it mostly happens under an LNP government. But I live in Queensland, so what would I know…

  5. Hacketts board membership was an honorary position designed to silence his criticism.
    Hopefully he doesn’t have a gag clause in place after leaving and can return to giving constructive criticism of the NBN.
    It was unfortunate that he mistook the assertions “within the board your criticism will be heard.” as “within the board your criticism will be used to create a better NBN.”

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