AUCKLAND, 11 August 2026
One New Zealand is reshaping its senior leadership team ahead of incoming chief executive Nick Judd taking control later this month, but the timing makes the announcement more significant than an ordinary executive reshuffle.
The telecommunications company confirmed on Tuesday that Kieran Byrne will become Chief Financial Officer, Sharina Nisha will be promoted to Chief Technology Officer, and Sonia Fernandes will join the business as Chief People Officer.
Judd, currently One NZ’s Chief Financial Officer, will succeed outgoing chief executive Jason Paris on 31 August, ending Paris’ almost eight-year tenure at the company.
On the surface, these are management appointments. Look at what is happening across New Zealand’s wider connectivity market, however, and the changes arrive at an important point for the company.
Traditional telecommunications providers are still competing intensely against one another, but increasingly they are also facing broadband and mobile competition from businesses whose original product was something completely different.
Energy companies are becoming telecommunications retailers. Satellite connectivity is developing. Artificial intelligence is changing customer service and internal operations. Consumers are increasingly shopping on price and looking for simple bundled services.
The next phase of New Zealand’s telecom competition may therefore be less about which company describes itself as a “telco” and more about which company can own the broader digital relationship with a household.
Three appointments as Nick Judd prepares to take charge
One NZ’s latest changes combine internal promotions with an external appointment.
Kieran Byrne, currently Chief Technology Officer, will move into the Chief Financial Officer position being vacated by Judd.
Byrne brings experience across technology, strategy, transformation, operations and commercial leadership. One NZ said its Infrastructure Partners wholesale function will remain within Byrne’s expanded portfolio.
The move is particularly interesting because it places an executive with a technology background into the company’s senior financial role.
That crossover between technology and capital allocation is becoming increasingly important for telecommunications companies, where decisions about network upgrades, artificial intelligence, digital platforms, spectrum and infrastructure can involve substantial long-term investment.
Sharina Nisha takes over technology leadership
Sharina Nisha will become One NZ’s new Chief Technology Officer.
She is currently General Manager Business Transformation and has more than 30 years of experience in telecommunications technology.
According to One NZ, Nisha has been involved in several of the company’s major technology programmes, including its T-One simplification programme, the development of One NZ Satellite and its implementation of artificial intelligence.
Her promotion places one of the executives already involved in transforming the company’s underlying technology into responsibility for the wider technology portfolio.
That matters because One NZ has increasingly positioned technology as part of its competitive identity.
Under Jason Paris, the company separated from its former Vodafone identity, rebranded as One New Zealand and invested heavily in areas including satellite-to-mobile connectivity and AI. The company says Paris also oversaw the launch of its nationwide satellite-to-mobile service and pushed the business towards becoming highly AI-enabled.
Sonia Fernandes joins as Chief People Officer
The third appointment brings an external perspective.
Sonia Fernandes will join One NZ at the end of August as Chief People Officer.
Fernandes has more than 20 years of experience in people and organisational transformation across technology, consulting, media and professional services.
Her career has included work across New Zealand, Australia, Asia, Europe, the United States and India.
One NZ says that international experience, combined with her commercial and transformation background, will support the company’s organisational development as it enters its next phase.
Incoming CEO Nick Judd said the appointments provided both continuity and new thinking.
“These appointments demonstrate the continuity in our strategy, while also adding fresh perspectives to our Executive team,” Judd said.
He said promoting from within reflected the strength of the company’s leadership pipeline, while Fernandes would add new experience to the organisation.
Jason Paris leaves after major transformation
The leadership changes follow One NZ’s July announcement that Jason Paris would step down after almost eight years as chief executive.
Paris led the company through one of the biggest identity changes in New Zealand telecommunications.
The former Vodafone New Zealand became One New Zealand after separating from Vodafone Group ownership, while the business simultaneously pushed into satellite connectivity, AI and significant mobile network investment.
One NZ reported in June that independent testing by umlaut had ranked its mobile network first across network experience categories for the fifth consecutive year. The company has also continued adding and upgrading mobile sites around the country.
Judd therefore inherits a business with substantial infrastructure and brand momentum.
But he also inherits a market that is becoming more complicated.
The competition is no longer just Spark, One NZ and 2degrees
For years, New Zealand’s consumer telecommunications discussion has largely centred around three names: Spark, One NZ and 2degrees.
That remains true in mobile.
The Commerce Commission’s latest telecommunications monitoring report shows the three mobile network operators still accounted for 96.8 percent of mobile subscribers as at June 2025.
Spark held approximately 38 percent, One NZ 37 percent and 2degrees 22 percent. One NZ was the only one of the three to increase its mobile market share over the preceding year, while Spark declined slightly and 2degrees remained broadly stable.
So there is no evidence of an immediate collapse in the traditional three-player mobile structure.
But look at broadband and the picture changes.
The Commerce Commission says Spark and One NZ both lost national broadband market share between 2021 and 2025, with smaller and newer providers taking share.
Crucially, the regulator specifically identified energy bundlers as part of that competitive pressure.
That is where the telecom industry’s next challenge becomes interesting.
Contact Energy offers a useful warning
Only a day before One NZ announced its executive changes, Contact Energy reported a $423 million annual profit and more than 690,000 customer connections across electricity, gas, broadband and mobile.
Contact remains fundamentally an energy company. Its strong profit result should not be confused with evidence that telecommunications drove those earnings.
But its customer strategy deserves attention.
Contact sells broadband alongside electricity, and now offers mobile plans that can provide credits against a customer’s power bill.
Its current offers explicitly encourage households to combine services, including electricity, broadband and mobile.
Genesis also sells broadband, while Mercury has built a presence across energy and telecommunications.
The Commerce Commission has already noticed the effect.
Its latest report says much of the competitive pressure in broadband has come from smaller providers, particularly companies bundling broadband with energy or television services.
This does not mean Contact, Mercury or Genesis are about to replace Spark, One NZ or 2degrees.
It means the boundaries between industries are becoming less useful.
Consumers increasingly care about value, not corporate categories
The reason bundling matters becomes clearer when consumer behaviour is considered.
Commerce Commission research found the main reason residential customers were considering leaving their mobile or broadband provider was to pay less.
Pricing, value for money and customer service were major causes of poor consumer sentiment.
More strikingly, 51 percent of residential broadband customers surveyed between January and June 2025 reported experiencing an issue, up from 39 percent during the equivalent period a year earlier. Reliability, speed and pricing were among the most common concerns.
That creates an opening.
A household struggling with electricity, broadband and mobile bills may care less about which company owns telecommunications infrastructure and more about the total monthly cost.
If an energy company can say, “bring us your broadband and mobile and we’ll reduce your power bill”, the competitive proposition changes.
Likewise, traditional telecommunications companies have an opportunity to respond through better service, differentiated technology, stronger networks, partnerships and products that extend beyond basic connectivity.
Satellite and AI add another layer
One NZ clearly understands that simply selling conventional mobile plans will not be enough.
Its satellite-to-mobile service is one example.
The technology extends connectivity to areas where conventional mobile towers may not provide coverage, potentially giving One NZ a point of differentiation in a country with substantial rural and remote geography.
AI represents another competitive frontier.
One NZ has been integrating artificial intelligence into its operations and customer experience. Nisha’s involvement in that implementation makes her promotion to CTO particularly relevant.
The company’s challenge will be ensuring AI translates into something customers actually notice, such as faster support, fewer service problems, improved network management or lower operating costs.
Technology transformation is valuable only if the customer eventually receives part of the benefit.
What One NZ’s reshuffle really signals
Executive appointments do not determine market outcomes on their own.
Kieran Byrne moving from technology to finance, Sharina Nisha taking control of technology and Sonia Fernandes arriving to lead people and organisational capability will ultimately be judged by what happens after the titles change.
But the structure gives some clues about One NZ’s priorities.
Technology, financial discipline, transformation and workforce capability are clearly being positioned close to the centre of the next leadership era.
That makes sense.
New Zealand telecommunications is still a concentrated market, particularly in mobile, but competitive pressure is developing from several directions at once.
Spark and 2degrees remain formidable traditional competitors.
Energy companies are increasingly bundling connectivity with household utilities.
Smaller mobile providers are slowly increasing their collective share, with MVNOs reaching 3.2 percent of the mobile market in 2025, the highest recorded level in New Zealand to that point.
Satellite technology is changing coverage expectations.
And consumers facing cost-of-living pressure are becoming increasingly sensitive to price and value.
Webfit News perspective: the real battle is for the household relationship
The biggest mistake would be to interpret One NZ’s announcement only as three people changing jobs.
It comes at a point when the definition of a telecommunications competitor is changing.
The traditional question was straightforward:
Which telco gives me the best mobile coverage or broadband plan?
The emerging question is broader:
Which company can give my household the best combination of connectivity, service, convenience and overall value?
One NZ has genuine strengths in network infrastructure, satellite technology, scale and mobile market share. Spark and 2degrees have their own substantial competitive advantages.
Energy retailers bring something different: an existing billing relationship with hundreds of thousands of households and the ability to connect telecommunications discounts directly to another unavoidable household expense.
Neither model automatically wins.
But the numbers suggest the large telecommunications companies cannot assume their biggest future competitors will always look like traditional telecommunications companies.
As Nick Judd prepares to take control of One NZ on 31 August, that may be one of the most important strategic questions facing his new executive team.
The network battle continues.
Increasingly, though, the bigger battle is for the household itself.
Image caption: From left, Sharina Nisha, Kieran Byrne and Sonia Fernandes.
Image credit: One New Zealand.
