Fran Foo | July 08, 2008
NOVELL Asia-Pacific president Maarten Koster has relocated from Singapore to Sydney to oversee local operations after Australian manager Rob Mills resigned a few weeks ago.
Novell has had difficulty retaining senior executives. In May 2006, Grant Greentree resigned after a mere three months in the job and was replaced by Matthew Christie.
Mr Christie, who began his career with Novell in 1999 as a sales representative in New Zealand, crossed the Tasman again in early 2007, joining telecommunications provider Zintel.
He was succeeded at Novell by Mr Mills who lasted about a year before leaving.
Mr Koster said he could not discuss why Mr Mills left, but said his departure had not seriously affected operations.
"I can't discuss why he left but it didn't cause any ripples," Mr Koster said.
Novell is in the midst of shortlisting internal and external candidates for the top job, he said. "Australia is a very important market for us, so we'll be looking to close this as soon as possible."
The company has 150 employees in Australia and is one of the top four software suppliers to the federal government by contract value.
Meanwhile, John Donovan has joined Novell in the newly created position of Asia-Pacific channels vice-president, based in Sydney.
Until December, Mr Donovan was Symantec Asia-Pacific channels head, alongside the security software vendor's local chief, David Sykes.