Vodafone New Zealand announced Jason Paris, director for convergence acceleration for Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific (AMAP) at Vodafone Group, will take over from long-serving CEO Russell Stanners (pictured) at the end of October.

Paris joined Vodafone Group earlier this year from Spark where he was CEO of home, mobile and business. He previously held senior roles at Television New Zealand and MediaWorks.


Stanners started as enterprise director for Vodafone New Zealand in 2002 and was appointed CEO in 2005.

Vodafone regional CEO for AMAP, Vivek Badrinath, said Stanners transformed the company from a consumer mobile business to a digital technology leader providing fixed, TV, converged and mobile services to more than 2 million customers across New Zealand.

Stanners said in a statement: “It’s been an incredible journey and the time has come for me to step down from my role. I’m committed to leading our great team until October and beyond that, I wish the company all the best as it enters a new era.”

Vodafone New Zealand is the largest mobile operator in the country with a 40 per cent share of mobile connections, while Spark has a 38 per cent market share, Q1 data from GSMA Intelligence showed.