[Sydney, AUSTRALIA] Melbourne IT chief executive
officer, Professor Peter Gerrand has announced he will leave the company as
of September 30.
Gerrand was the founding CEO and managing director of
Australia’s largest domain name registrar for four and a half years. The
company’s chief operating officer, Adrian Kloeden, has been appointed as the
new CEO. The Melbourne IT board said Kloeden would be “an outstanding
replacement for Professor Gerrand
because of his proven business management skills.”
Kloeden will be supported by Clive Flory who has been appointed president
international of Melbourne IT’s domain name business Internet Names
Worldwide.
Flory has responsibility for the registry opportunity and will assume
responsibility for the company’s major business partner relations and
international domain name sales.
The chief financial officer, Andrew Field will join Kloeden and Flory as a
“core executive” in the new team.
Professor Gerrand said his decision to stand down as CEO was primarily a
‘quality-of-lifestyle’ choice for him and his family. He described the hours
of work and travel required in managing a blue-chip new-economy company with
a global span of activities in a volatile market as “continually
challenging”.
Professor Gerrand said that while he was proud to have built the company to
its current capability, he recognized it now needed a new management team
“with different abilities to take Melbourne IT through to its next stage of
development in this increasingly competitive global market.”
“The board has been successful in its succession planning which has seen the
development, over the past 12 months, of a strong and highly skilled
management team,” Gerrand said.
Gerrand will remain a consultant to the company.
