Localist CTO role disestablished

By Stephen Bell | Friday, January 27 2012

Ken Holley emails industry following announcement of departure.

The chief technology officer role at the Auckland-based directory service Localist has been disestablished and Ken Holley will leave the company on February 20.

The technology function will be handed over to a “new smaller management group,” says an announcement from chief executive Blair Glubb.

The move “did surprise me”,Holley told Computerworld; “but we all knew there would be challenges and changes for the company; it’s part of working for a startup.”

Holley declines to comment on whether disestablishing the post of CTO at this stage of the company’s evolution is an appropriate move.

He has no definite plans for his next post “but I’d like to bring the skills I’ve developed to build other businesses rapidly through cloud technology,” he says.

Holley yesterday sent an email regarding his departure: “To everyone concerned and a few more I'm sure I have forgotten, THANK YOU for believing in me and the technology vision for Localist, you all have been part of creating something awesome that a lot of other organisations strive to achieve and I know that it would not have been achieved without you. I'm unsure where I will end up but I'm excited about new prospects.”

The email included a statement from Localist CEO Blair Glubb confirming that Holley will depart the company.

“The business is evolving from its build and start-up phase towards growth. The original organisational structure was established to build capabilities areas in the organisation across people, process and technology,” Glubb writes in the email.

“This is now largely complete, with Localist having designed and implemented it’s technical architecture and infrastructure. The emphasis is now on leveraging existing people, process, partners and technical capability within the organisation to drive delivery of products to market and monetise the Localist platform.”

Glubb writes that Holley “has been part of the fabric of Localist from day one” and that he “broke new ground in the rapid implementation of cost effective, innovative technology capability.”

Last year, Holley was a finalist for the CIO of the Year Award, and in August spoke enthusiastically about the future of the company’s technology, with its cloud computing emphasis.

Holley’s departure follows reports earlier this month that staff at the fledgling Auckland-based directory service were being asked to reapply for their jobs and that it had turned to its owner NZ Post for additional funding.