Movers and shakers

Brocker Technology Group has appointed Paul Merton as general manager, sales and marketing of its Professional Services division.

He brings with him a wealth of local and international sales and marketing experience, coupled with an enviable track record of sales success.

His most recent roles have been with IBM as the Asia Pacific sales manager for the ICMS customer care and billing product, and with USHA Technology as vice-president of sales for Asia Pacific.

John McElhinney is the new chief executive officer of The Radio Network, to be based in its Auckland head office. He will replace departing chief executive officer Kevin Malone.

The new chief is no stranger to TRN, having worked for the company for the past 29 years.

"Back in the 70s when I was a station programmer I never dreamed that one day I would be the CEO of the company," he says. "It has just been a natural progression."

Rod Gabb has been appointed general manager of arq Peripheral Management, a procurement service provider for non-strategic categories to large New Zealand businesses.

He has held numerous senior appointments in some of New Zealand's leading corporates, including Telecom and the Fletcher Challenge group, predominantly in the areas of finance, procurement and process re-engineering.

Steve Wood has been appointed president of Nortel Networks Australia and New Zealand.

He replaces Reg Bird, who retires on June 30 and will be returning to Canada.

Wood has been involved in the local and regional IT and telecommunications industry for more than 10 years.

He has acquired a wealth of experience in enterprise, carrier and service provider markets as Asia Pacific head of Bay Networks and Alteon WebSystems, both now part of Nortel Networks.

Most recently, he was responsible for directing Content Networking sales, marketing and support activities for Nortel Networks in the Asia Pacific region.

Trish McLean, formerly of Morgan & Banks, has joined forces with Mandy Scotney to create Retailworld Resourcing, a recruitment and HR consultancy focusing purely on retail.

Scotney's previous roles include executive recruitment and many years as HR manager for the Flight Centre Group.

ITM has announced the appointment of Gordon Buswell as the new chief executive officer of ITM, New Zealand's largest group of independent timber, building and hardware supply merchants.

He has spent the past 12 years working in key finance, marketing, business strategy and development roles at Carter Holt Harvey Wood Products in New Zealand and internationally, and brings a strong industry background to the 86-member ITM national network.

TelstraSaturn has a new chairman of its board of directors.

He is John Porter, chief executive of Austar, who takes over the chair from Lindsay Yelland.

Under the shareholders' agreement, the chairmanship is rotated between Telstra and Austar on an annual basis.

Telstra Corporation has also decided that because of internal changes which make the TelstraSaturn investment the responsibility of Dick Simpson as group managing director of Telstra International, that Simpson should replace Yelland on the company's board.

Schwarzkopf NZ (retail) has a new national sales manager, Glenn Cochrane, consolidating the company's top management team. Cochrane, with 26 years experience in FMCG, is set to add further strength to the solid marketing team.

Neill Sutton takes up the role of general manager at Schwarzkopf (retail) following the departure of managing director Wayne Scurrah after 10 years at the company.

M for Media's CEO, Kevin Blight, has announced the appointment of Alana Storey as its fourth media director.

"Our business is growing so we are pleased to be able to appoint someone with Alana's breadth of experience."

Since 1991, Storey has been involved with some of New Zealand's blue-chip retail, FMCG and financial service brands.

Shane McManaway has joined Tru-Test in the new role of head of sales. McManaway is a seasoned sales and marketing executive.

He has worked in national sales and general management in agricultural chemicals in Australia and NZ, and at the general management level in rural retail in both countries.