Expert guiding telco through a wave of change

THE Vamos household in Sydney boasts six flat-screen TVs, three Foxtel set-top boxes, a laptop, a PABX system and, of course, an iPad.

But don't ever try to label Steve Vamos a "technologist" -- even if the plaudits of his former business partner and good friend James Packer lead you to that conclusion.

Very good person

"Steve is a very good person, and an excellent businessman. He has one of the best experience sets in IT of anyone I have met," Packer tells The Weekend Australian.

Vamos, the former local boss of Apple, Microsoft and the ninemsn joint venture with the Packers, seems to prefer the loose title of "entrepreneur" these days.

Vamos says he was genuinely excited to become involved with what he calls "Australia's premier technology and communications company" when he joined the telco's board in September last year.

He was at IBM when the mini-computer came along, at Apple when the PC was launched and he was in the internet industry right from the beginning.

Important understanding of how technology

"I have an important understanding of how technology, communications and media are intersecting and how that pans out in how you define your offering and market your offering to consumers," he says.

Indeed, it was their respective knowledge of the internet and infrastructure that led Telstra chairman Catherine Livingstone and the board to appoint Vamos and energy expert Russell Higgins as directors last year instead of a high-profile female candidate who was being considered.

"I have lived through lots of waves of change," Vamos says. "Be it at IBM, Apple, Microsoft and ninemsn. So change doesn't scare me. Change is a difficult thing and it is not always a popular thing."

Vamos became managing director of Apple Computer Australia in 1994 before serving a term as vice-president of Apple Computer Asia-Pacific from 1996 to 1998.

Vamos was vice-president of Microsoft Australia and New Zealand for four years. In 2007, he moved to the US to become the company's head of worldwide sales and international operations for its online services group responsible for Microsoft's business in more than 30 countries.

The SKE conducts research in partnership with organisations such as the Business Council of Australia, NSW Department of Lands, the Victorian government and the federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

"In this new world we live in -- this connected world, the networked world, which is really, I think, changing things from the old industrial age, hierarchical, siloed, slow-changing, fragmented world -- we need to rethink the way we lead," he says.

And over his career, Vamos has learnt from some of the best leaders on the planet -- legends of the global IT sector such as Steve Jobs at Apple, and Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates at Microsoft.

"My predecessor and I were sitting on the plane together and he was flicking through this book that was A3 size with tiny print, which had detail on every part of the business," Vamos says.

"Fortunately for me, I had plenty of experience working with senior executives from IBM and Apple, had met with prime ministers, etc, so I was comfortable," he says. "But the amount of preparation that goes into a visit like that is remarkable."

But Vamos says it was James Packer's belief in the power of the internet that really allowed ninemsn to grow. This was despite reports at the time that ninemsn was resented by other parts of the Packer media empire.

The ninemsn days

"In the ninemsn days, if James Packer didn't personally articulate the importance of ninemsn's success to the Nine Network and ACP magazines, there could have been any number of things that those businesses did to stifle our progress. But they didn't. They were terrific supporters of us because they had that leadership. So that is where leadership matters."

But these days there are also other entrepreneurial interests to pursue, such as a venture he is bankrolling with former Nine Network executive Kim Anderson. The Reading Room, as it is called, is like a Facebook service for book lovers.

"I can remember when I was working for Apple and I got a Mac and I brought it home. My youngest girl and I were sitting at the computer and it got stuck," he says.

What went wrong

"I asked what went wrong and she pushed me off the chair and she got in there and she fixed it. She looked over her shoulder at me and said: 'Dad, I should be the one working at Apple, not you'."