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Bell Canada has several key executive changes with the most prominent being the departure of Michael Neuman as president of Bell Mobility and Bell Distribution Inc. after three years with the company. He played a key role in the evolution of Bell Mobility including spearheading the formation of a joint venture with British mobile virtual network operator Virgin Mobile, which is set to launch services early in March. He also championed the company’s foray into push-to-talk services. Robert Odendaal takes the reins at Bell Mobility in addition to the same position for Bell’s video services group. Alek Kstajic, formerly the chief marketing officer in the consumer group, will become president of Bell Mobility, responsible for delivering on the 2005 operating plan. Kevin Krull has been appointed as president of consumer solutions. He was most recently senior VP of enterprise wireless at AT&T in the United States. Ron Close has been chosen to head Bell Canada’s new VoIP unit. He is a former AT&T Canada executive with extensive telecommunications and Internet experience. Lastly, Gary Smith has been named president of Bell ExpressVu, a promotion from his previous position as senior VP of operations at the company. James Pattison has joined BCE Inc.’s board of directors. He will also serve on the boards of Bell Canada and Telesat Canada. Pattison has served on the boards of a number of companies and is currently a director of Canadian Forest Products. Two of TELUS Corp.’s top executives are leaving the company. According to reports, Chris Carty, executive VP of corporate strategy, has already left the company, and an email to TELUS employees indicates that Mark Schnarr, executive VP of corporate development, will be leaving. The email also stated that the responsibilities of the two executives will be taken over by a team led by CFO Robert McFarlane. ZIM Corp. has announced the appointment of Patrick Beirne as chief technology advisor. Beirne previously worked at Mitel Corp. and Corel Corp. It was at Corel where he helped create CorelDraw. Plaintree Systems Inc. is expanding its sales department with the appointment of Baksheesh Ghuman as executive VP of worldwide sales and marketing. He joins Plaintree from Onmilux Inc. where he was VP for international sales and market development. In this position, he led the company’s international market expansion. Ghuman has extensive experience in both the wireless and optical industries. Thomas Ceh has joined Digital Dispatch Systems Inc. as VP of sales for North America. He has extensive experience in sales having worked at Motorola Canada, Glenayre Electronics, AT&T Wireless and others. Telesystem International Wireless Inc. has announced changes to its board of directors. Christian Salbaing has resigned as a director of the company. He was the nominee of U.F. Investments (Barbados) Ltd., an affiliate of Hutchison Whampoa Limited of Hong Kong, under an agreement between TIW and UFI. NovAtel Inc. has announced the resignations of Gregory Yeldon and Gregory Baylin from the company’s board of directors, effective February 8. The company has begun the process of searching for replacements. GDI Global Data Inc. has appointed Dan Erlich, chair, president and CEO. The company has also appointed Ron Erlich as director. Lawrence Davis has resigned as president and a director of the company to pursue other opportunities.

ROW People

News | February 23, 2005

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