She replaces Simon Moutter, who has resigned after seven years in the role.
Spark’s chair, Justine Smyth, said that when Moutter took over the role in August 2012, he expected to do the job for five to seven years.
“The board are particularly pleased that we’ve been able to achieve a very smooth and professional succession arrangement, and in particular we are delighted that Jolie Hodson has been appointed as Simon’s successor,” said Smyth.
Spark is the former fixed and mobile services arm of Telecom New Zealand, which was demerged from fixed infrastructure provider Chorus in 2011. The CEO of Telecom NZ at the time of the demerger was Paul Reynolds, who several years before had led the creation of Openreach as the BT last-mile division in the UK. Telecom NZ was rebranded as Spark under Moutter’s leadership.
Smyth said of the new CEO: “Jolie is an accomplished leader with a strong record of delivering results and managing complex business units and to be able to appoint an executive of Jolie’s calibre and experience is a testament to the quality of the talent within the company.”
Hodson (pictured) joined Spark as CFO in 2013 and since then has been CEO of Spark Digital before taking on the role of customer director last year.
Smyth said: “As board directors, we have had the opportunity to work closely with Jolie over recent years on a range of important company matters and we have been consistently impressed with her business acumen, her strategic vision and her quality decision making.”
Two years ago Hodson helped to set up OnBeingBold, formed by “a group of business leaders passionate about helping women to succeed in business”. Its website says it is “an online collective developed by women for women. It has been created to capture and share the personal life journeys and experiences of prominent New Zealand business leaders so that others can be reassured that the squiggly line connecting home life and careers is anything but straightforward.”
