Our Management Team

Sue Bailey
Chief Executive Officer

Sue took the reins as CEO of Virgin Mobile Australia in April 2010. Her mission is to ensure we continue to deliver great value mobile and broadband products while maintaining our award-winning levels of customer service.

Having spent the last seven years with Virgin Mobile in senior marketing roles, Sue knows the business inside-out. She's recently back from working at Virgin Mobile US as Senior Vice President of Customer Proposition (try saying that quickly three times), prior to which she was our Marketing Director here in Australia, leading the way in our brand, communications and go-to-market strategies. Sue originally joined Virgin Mobile after several years at Telstra in senior consumer marketing and strategic marketing positions.

In her spare time Sue enjoys the outdoor sights and sounds of Australia. As an avid bushwalker, birdwatcher and traveller, Sue greatly appreciated her time in the US, where she developed a passion for American history (and feels privileged to have been there at such a pivotal time). She cites the 2005 Ashes test cricket match in England and paddling a canoe up the Yukon river in Canada as highlights of her adventures to date, but we expect many more to come as she leads Virgin Mobile into the future.

Nigel Grange
CIO

With years of experience in Internet and Telco and a broad skill base in project management, training and beyond, Nigel Grange's (AKA head geek) foresight keeps us on the cutting edge and ensures we are always planning several steps ahead of where we need to be, so our customers have a great experience. That makes him a rather busy man, who yet always manages to retain a Zen-like calm.

Things might have been quite different for Nigel had he not decided on a career switch from commercial photography (he went to the Dublin College of Art & Design) to start a highly successful 7-year stint at AOL back in the mid-90s, which brought him to Australia in 1999.

He joined Virgin Mobile in 2005 to head up the Projects area at a crucial and exciting time of transition for the business, when we merged with Optus, moved our head offices and had a stream of new product launches.

Since then it's been non-stop action as we continually update and expand our infrastructure. Nigel stepped up to the CIO role in January 2009 as well as graduating from UNSW with a Masters in Business & Technology in 2008.

Dianne Fahey
HR Director

Di is our people person. She leads and champions HR initiatives that integrate our uniquely fun and cheeky Virgin culture with more serious business needs by focussing on the performance and development of our incredibly diverse staff base.

Di joined Virgin Mobile in December 2009 fresh from a one-year career break “relaxing” in the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong. Half her luck!

Prior to heading for Hong Kong, Di gained significant HR expertise in various roles across the SingTel Optus Group, including, at one stage, responsibility for all people-related functions from recruitment to payroll across an organisation of 800. In the past Di was also Human Resources Manager for various business divisions within Optus including Corporate, IT, Mobile and Consumer and Multimedia.

As a keen scuba diver, Di has explored the waters throughout Thailand, the Great Barrier Reef and the Solomon Islands. Showing an adventurous streak that would make Richard Branson proud, she also loves hiking and camping and has successfully traversed the notoriously challenging Cradle Mountain Track in Tasmania.

Matt Pearce
Strategy Director

For Andrew Skelton, thinking six moves ahead is all in a day’s work. Our resident strategy grandmaster is the man charged with spotting business and development opportunities, managing board communications and implementing our regulatory and policy positions. You could say he's our big-picture guy.

Andrew is no stranger to foreign shores, having spent most of the last decade in senior roles for overseas telco businesses – Vodafone in particular. As Head of Commercial Strategy & Planning for Vodafone Egypt he developed and reviewed opportunities in a market that is as turbulent as its traffic!! Prior to this he was the Senior Marketing Planning Manager for Vodafone Group’s 260 million customers, and was even fortunate enough to work within Vodafone Ireland’s crack Commercial Finance team. Clearly he’s as nifty with a calculator as with strategy.

During a one-year career break before joining our team, Andrew indulged his inner thriller-seeker by journeying deep into the Amazon jungle, marching up Machu Picchu and cage diving with great white sharks in Cape Town. He has also accumulated a rather impressive list of NYE locations over the years, from the Pyramids of Giza and Times Square to the Eiffel Tower and many more. We’re delighted he’s chosen us as his next port of call.

Marcus Bourget
Corporate Counsel

Marcus runs Virgin Mobile's in-house legal team, and his invaluable advice on a range of issues keeps us out of court and ensures we play fair as a business.

Born in Singapore in 1970, Marcus grew up in a small farming village in the north of Scotland and earned himself a place at Cambridge University. He started his legal career with Clyde & Co, an English firm specialising in Admiralty - the law of the sea. This role took him to Hong Kong, where a six-month stint became a six-year stopover.

In 2000 he upped anchor and set sail to Sydney, landing a job with Minter Ellison. Seconded to Optus, he joined Optus full-time in 2003 and came to Virgin Mobile on secondment in 2007. In a short but moving ceremony he officially regained his virginity when he became a permanent member of our team later that year.

Outside his day job, Marcus is best known for his involvement with the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. He became a director in 2004 and was head honcho from 2005 to 2008 - transforming the recently bankrupt organisation into a profitable, vibrant festival, while at the same time organising some of Sydney's most legendary parties.

Matt Anderson
Billing, Web and Customer Experience Transformation Director

Matt holds the record for the longest job title of any of our management team. And for good reason. His multifaceted role includes ensuring our Virgin customer experience is consistently delivered across our retail stores, call centres and online, as well as managing the web operations of our Internet-loving customers AND making sure all customer bills are accurately invoiced each and every time. Busy boy.

Before joining Virgin Mobile 2008, Matt was with Fonterra (the world’s largest dairy exporter), running their Global Customer Service & Supply Chain Centre. Prior to that, Matt was a customer service guru, aka Business Operations Manager, at Vodafone Australia.

With double degrees from Victoria University in New Zealand – a Bachelor of Commerce & Administration (majoring in management) and a Bachelor of Arts (majoring in psychology) – clever Matt is not to messed with on Trivia Night.

Matt is a keen online gamer and spends most of his weekends in virtual battles. He loves great food and is passionate about wife’s fantastic cooking. Oh, and he also loves spending time with his wife and maltese dog named Noodles. Seriously.

Chris Lipman
Customer Service Director

Chris Lipman's job is to keep our one million plus people happy.

As Director of Customer Service, he is focused on ensuring that we keep dishing out the kind of rock star service that Virgin companies worldwide are famous for. Not only that, he is dedicated to making the work environment the best he possibly can for every one of our representatives who are in contact with customers. He's so keen on developing our staff, he'd probably train them in morse code, if we ever got a telegram. (He is lobbying for their re-introduction).

Kicking his telco career off at Optus, Chris quickly rose from a Sales Team Leader to NSW State Campaign Manager in the late 90's. After defecting to new kid on the block One.Tel - where he was National Call Centre Manager - he returned to Optus and continued his rise through the Customer Service management ranks. 2003 saw him 'move' to Simplus (an Optus subsidary) as Head of Customer Service and when Simplus itself was merged with Virgin Mobile in 2006, he officially became part of the Virgin family. After spending some time as General Manager of our offshore operations based in the Philippines, he took up the mantle of Customer Service Director in October 2008.