Our Management Team

Peter Bithos
CEO

Peter Bithos's mission - which he has chosen to accept - is to aggressively grow Virgin Mobile into a customer-focused, high-return business while preserving and nurturing the amazing team and culture he now leads.

Peter joined Virgin Mobile Australia in 2006, responsible for our strategy, regulatory, web and telesales areas, and steered the launch of Virgin Broadband before stepping into the CEO role in 2008.

Before joining Virgin Mobile, Peter led Optus's corporate strategy, mergers & acquisition and mobile strategy. He was also a senior manager specialising in telecommunications and airlines at leading international strategy consulting firm Bain & Co.

Peter says, "I am truly privileged to have the best job in Australian telecommunications today. I've inherited an amazing team, a great brand and supportive shareholders. If you think Virgin Mobile has done great things thus far, well, just wait and see where we go from here."

We couldn't agree more.

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.

Geoff Hester
Sales Director

The man charged with keeping the registers ringing in Virgin Mobile's retail, online and telesales channels, Geoff certainly isn't shy of handling petty cash. As General Manager of Indirect Channels for Telstra, he led a team of 175 people accountable for external revenue of $2.2 billion and managed an expense budget in excess of $300 million.

When he joined us in 2003, Geoff's CV was packed with an impressive breadth of experience across the telco industry, gained from working in the consumer, small business, corporate and government market segments for fixed and wireless products.

Geoff started his career as a "sparky", which explains the shock of white hair. He progressed through engineering and technical roles for Telstra but soon changed direction and proceeded to build a substantial career in sales and marketing at Hutchison (with the Orange and 3 brands) before stepping across to Virgin Mobile in 2003 - surely a move that was meant to be for a man now dubbed "the silver fox".

Anthony Hearne
Marketing Director

Ant Hearne joined Virgin Mobile as Marketing Director in October 2009 and is now the man responsible for harnessing the awesome powers of our marketing team. To that end, he'll be making sure we stay true to our Virgin roots, disrupting the telco market whilst having a laugh along the way.

Ant brings expertise from a variety of roles within the consumer and retail marketing space, as well as a strong entrepreneurial flair gained through leading teams and his own business endeavours: Richard Branson would be proud! Most recently he headed up Marketing for Optus Consumer, where he determined the overall marketing agenda and enhanced the team capability to deliver products and services across both mobile & fixed networks.

Previously, Ant was Managing Director of Pre-Paid Services, an Optus subsidiary that distributes Optus, Boost and Virgin Mobile Pre-Paid products. Within this role Ant set the business priorities, had responsibility for all day-to-day operations, and successfully managed a two-year period of significant growth. Prior to that, Ant held a variety of senior management positions across acquisition and retail marketing within SingTel Optus, including stints on taskforces visiting Dubai & Pakistan.

Outside of work Ant is a long-time rugby devotee, having donned boots in both Australia, the UK and Singapore at senior Grade level. He lives near the beach, and still finds time for the occasional surf despite the commitments of a growing family with three children under five.

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
General Manager, Strategy & Regulatory Affairs

Matt Pearce joined Virgin Mobile in 2004 and now leads the business strategy and regulatory affairs functions for the company. In this role, Matt identifies business and development opportunities, manages Board communications, and implements and represents our regulatory and policy positions. You could say he's our big-picture guy.

Before jumping into the shark-infested waters of commercial telco at Virgin Mobile, Matt managed policy reviews for the NSW Government at the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal of NSW and held an executive level position at the Australian Government Department of Communications, IT and the Arts from 2001 to 2003.

Matt holds a cross-disciplinary Doctorate in media and politics from Macquarie University (hence his nickname 'Doc'), plus two other degrees which he assures us he did not get on the internet!

From 2006 to 2008, Matt chaired the policy and strategy steering committee of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, the peak representative body for the $12 billion mobile telecommunications sector in Australia.

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.