The big changes this year at Virgin Mobile Australia are already underway.

Virgin Mobile Australia has recruited a new chief to replace former CEO Peter Bithos. Sue Bailey, a marketing director with Virgin Mobile USA, will step up to take over as CEO as Bithos switches to a consumer focus role in Globe Telecom, the Philippine company affiliated with SingTel.

The Virgin Mobile team in Australia also welcome new CFO Michael Seymour who will be taking over from former CFO John Wylkie. Seymore has been working as Pacific Bangladesh Telecom's CFO, which is also a SingTel associate.

However, there will be bigger changes this year for VHA apart from their executive turnover. In May, Virgin Mobile Australia will transfer at least 100 of its operations staff to parent company Optus' Macquarie Park site. According to VMA spokesperson Sarah Blades, this will include the VMA IT support, warehouse and logistics teams who have been promised a job but not necessarily their current role.

‘We intend for all the people who currently work within the affected areas to either transfer to, or be redeployed within, Optus’, Sarah Blades recently told ZDNet.

This is a huge shift for VMA. It involves breaking up their workforce of 400 who have worked for VMA IT departments independent of Optus over the last five years. However, VMA is keen to consolidate and minimise operation costs where it can.

Blades says, ‘All components relating to the delivery of systems and technology will remain at Virgin Mobile. Systems support and operations including help desk will be moving to Optus. It makes sense for us to leverage their support capability’.

With the executive turnover already started and the restructure set to commence next month, 2010 will certainly be a year of change for Virgin Mobile Australia.