Customer Centre

Executive Leadership Team

Bruce J. Akhurst (BEc, LLB)

Chief Executive Officer, Sensis

Bruce Akhurst assumed the role of Sensis CEO on 1 January 2005. In Telstra, the Sensis CEO position is of Group Managing Director (GMD) level and, as such, Bruce reports directly to the CEO of Telstra, and is a member of the Telstra Chief Executive Officer's Leadership Team.

Bruce is Chairman of the Foxtel board, a director of Soufun Holdings Limited and Chairman of Sequel Limited.

Prior to his current appointment, Bruce was GMD of Telstra Wholesale, BigPond™ and Media Services, in addition to being Telstra Group General Counsel and Sensis Chairman. Bruce joined Telstra as General Counsel in late 1996 and was appointed Group Managing Director Legal and Regulatory in early 1999. Before joining Telstra, Bruce was a Managing Partner at national law firm, Mallesons Stephen Jaques. Bruce has completed a Bachelor of Economics and Bachelor of Law.

 

George Elsey (Dip IR. G Dip IR. G Dip Org Change, MSC (org Change) M Comm)

Executive General Manager, Human Resources

George Elsey joined Sensis in October 2001 as General Manager, Human Resources. During his time at Sensis, George has been instrumental in leading the employee People Commitment Program and successful staff integration programs following company acquisitions made in Australia and China.

Before joining Sensis, George worked at Qantas for six years where he was Group General Manager Human Resources. In addition to Qantas, George has held senior human resources positions in the mining, meat export and manufacturing industries. He has extensive experience in industrial relations, organisation change, training and management development, designing and structuring businesses, and strategic change management. 

 

Grainne Kearns

Chief Information Officer

Grainne Kearns was appointed Chief Information Officer in June 2009. In this role, Grainne is responsible for all aspects of Sensis’ IT infrastructure and line-of-business application development, support and maintenance, including IT service delivery and security. Under Grainne’s direction, the IT department is dedicated to working with Sensis’ line-of-business and industry partners to align Sensis’ IT strategy with the company’s business strategy.

Grainne has been with Sensis and previously Telstra since 2004. Most recently she has held the role of GM, Enterprise Infrastructure Services, reporting to the CIO. In this role she led Sensis’ IT Infrastructure and Operations organisation. With 22 years of IT experience, Grainne has held a wide variety of IT roles both in Australia and overseas in the banking, insurance and telecommunications industries.

Prior to her appointment as CIO, Grainne was awarded the acclaimed ComputerWorld Top 100 Leaders Award in 2008, the only Australian and 1 of only 10 women worldwide to receive this award. 

 

Carl Rigoni

Executive General Manager, Product

Carl is responsible for driving Sensis’ position in the rapidly expanding digital advertising market. His portfolio encompasses Australia’s leading navigation business Whereis who supply digital maps to the majority of portable and in-car navigation companies in Australia, Telstra’s digital advertising business MediaSmart, Business Information Services, which offers information and marketing solutions to businesses, the advertising workflow and distribution service provider AdStream, the Citysearch and Whereis websites and the company’s Voice portfolio.

Carl has been part of the Telstra/Sensis family for almost 11 years having worked for two years at Telstra prior to joining Sensis in 2001. Upon commencing employment with Sensis, Carl was instrumental in the merger of the 12456 Call Connect and DA services from Telstra to Sensis and spearheaded the concept, construction and deployment of Sensis’ premium Voice product 1234. As well as heading up the Sensis Voice portfolio, Carl also managed the Whereis.com and Citysearch businesses.

 

Silvio Santostefano (BB)

Chief Financial Officer

Silvio Santostefano was appointed Chief Financial Officer in June 2009. In this role, Silvio is responsible for all financial and management accounting and administration functions including payroll, fleet and property.

Silvio has been with Sensis since 1989. During this time, Silvio has held various positions including Finance Director, Group Financial Controller – Directory Solutions and Group Manager Financial Planning.

Silvio is a Certified Practicing Accountant and registered Tax Agent and holds a Bachelor of Business degree.

 

Michelle Sherwood

Executive General Manager, Strategic Marketing

As General Manager Marketing, Michelle Sherwood is responsible for the marketing communications, strategic communications functions across some of Sensis’ most well known brands, including Yellow Pages®, White Pages®, Whereis®, Citysearch®, 1234 and Call Connect, sensis mobile and sensis.com.au.

Prior to her current appointment, Michelle held a variety of senior sales, marketing and product positions at Sensis, most recently as National Sales Director for Yellow Pages® Directories, yellowpages.com.au and Yellow™ Mobile.

Michelle joined Sensis in 2002. Before joining Sensis, Michelle was the National Marketing Director for CitySearch, then owned by John Fairfax, where she was responsible for the award winning re-branding and launch of the print and online directory.

Michelle has attended the Harvard Business School’s General Management Residential Programme.
 

Gerry Sutton

Executive General Manager, Customer

As Executive General Manager, Customer, Gerry is responsible for Yellow Pages and White Pages Sales, Operations, Customer Care, and Field Market and Channel Management.

Gerry joined Sensis in 2005 as General Manager Sensis Strategy, was appointed Chief Information Officer in 2006 and in May 2009 was appointed Chief Operations Officer. Most recently, Gerry commenced his new role as Executive General Manager, Customer in April 2011.

Joining Telstra in 1999, Gerry has led several significant initiatives within Foxtel and BigPond. He was instrumental in the restructuring of the Pay TV industry in Australia, and implemented Telstra’s bundling of Pay TV with telephony through the landmark regulatory decision in 2002. In addition, Gerry was also responsible for developing the strategy and management for content relationships, including AFL/NRL, V8 Supercars, Games, Music and Movies. Gerry maintains his Directorship of Telstra’s investment in Foxtel.

Prior to Telstra, Gerry held several roles within Kodak over a 26 year period, commencing as an IT software engineer and progressing to President and CEO of Eastman Software, a Boston based workflow and e-commerce subsidiary of Eastman Kodak. Gerry has completed a Bachelor of Science from Monash University majoring in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics.