Adaptability handy for job steering telco forum

David Stone

David Stone's work career has dog-legged between hunting for minerals in the Australian outback, commercial law and investment banking.

"I'm nothing if not adaptable."

That adaptability, as well as a fair dollop of negotiating nous, will set Stone in good stead for his new job.

After 10 years in telecommunications, he now heads the Telecommunications Carriers' Forum, the industry body which brings together the major and minor telcos.

Stone took over running the forum at the end of November after more than five years at Vodafone and with two years' experience on the TCF board.

The forum works on the details phone and internet customers never need to see - how to connect calls to emergency services, marry equipment and services between telcos, deal with customer disputes and transfer customers seamlessly between telcos. Its role is enshrined in statute.

Soon after starting the job, Stone got a letter from David Ware, managing director of Wellington telecommunications company TeamTalk.

Ware expressed dismay at the TCF, accusing it of being "nothing more than a club that a few large telecommunications companies use to bully the industry into submission and to paste a veneer of respectability over their immoral behaviour".

"One of the cheap tactics the big boys use to keep the minnows in line is to simply drown them in paperwork," said Ware.

Since then Stone has caught up with Ware and is confident he can smooth a path for TeamTalk to join the TCF.

He is proposing an analyst resource be available to smaller companies to lay out the implications of particular issues to enable easy analysis.

Stone doesn't agree the TCF operates as a club for telco heavy hitters.

"All I can say is that is a perception based on ignorance rather than one based on participation.

"It's very easy to form that view in that most of the funding is provided by the three big players ... and they automatically get a board seat and the tier two and tier three members have to have a representative."

That may be all about to change.

Stone said the forum was undergoing a review, a result of a maturing in the industry that no longer bickered the way it used to.

"There is much better behaviour by and large ... a much greater recognition of the need for co-operation."

He can see a time when, like the electricity industry, there will be a different levels of contribution but equality of voting.

"It's a time of great change within our industry. With the Government's ultra-fast broadband initiative the shape of the industry is likely to be potentially very different."

Stone said the wider industry changes would mean a reform to the forum to ensure it stayed relevant and effective in the new environment.

"I don't have the answer to that yet, but I have some ideas," he said.

Among those on the TCF board is Stone's wife, Susie, general manager of strategic development at state-owned telecommunications company Kordia.

While in the past they have demonstrated that the Chinese Wall has extended across the pillow, Stone's change of role means they can talk more freely at home about industry issues.

"When I was at Vodafone and Susie was at Kordia it was sometimes a little uncomfortable.

"There were times when our respective organisations were misaligned."

Home life seems dominated by keeping up with son Harry's various sporting pursuits, ranging from karate, tennis, rugby and cricket to triathlon.

Stone is on the hunt for a geology hammer - surprisingly hard to come by - to go rock hunting with Harry.

He also sails and is, for the next three months, commodore of the Devonport yacht club.

A lot of Stone's work time is spent talking to the various industry chief executives, preferring to catch up over a long black in a cafe rather than round the boardroom table.

Despite his Vodafone links, Stone said he wasn't viewed with suspicion by the other telcos. "Quite the opposite. I have a reputation for being pretty straight, pretty direct. What you see is what you get and I don't play games."

He conceded getting agreement among the industry players that make up the forum was not always easy.

"It's a consensus based organisation with a diverse membership. Herding the cats is a challenge and trying to deliver consensus. There are always going to be areas that you won't - they are all competitors."

But in areas representing the governance of the industry it was possible to get the telcos to agree, he said, and that made his job worthwhile.

DAVID STONE

* Chief executive, Telecommunications Carriers' Forum.
* Studied law and geology at university.
* Has worked as an exploration geologist in Australia, a commercial lawyer and merchant banker.
* Previously head of industry affairs at Vodafone.
* Married to Susie Stone, general manager of strategic development at Kordia.
* Sails and follows the sporting pursuits of 9-year-old son Harry.