“And as for the knights who gave their lives, their deaths were cause for neither mourning nor sadness. For they will live forever, their names and deeds handed down from father to son, mother to daughter, in the legends of King Arthur and his knights.” Lancelot
After 10 years and the key driver of Program Springboard, Thomas Arthur GM of Product will be leaving Sensis. With Bruce Akhurst (CEO) at the helm of a vast ship sailing into the abyss, Bruce is positioning to protect himself from executives at Telstra that wish to remove him from further decaying Sensis profitably with misguided and wasteful strategies.
Bruce was keen to remove the only logical next in line to the CEO position. To also ensure his longevity, Michelle Sherwood GM will no longer be reporting to Gerry but will now report directly to Bruce. Carl Rigoni will take over from Thomas as GM of Product also reporting directly to Bruce. It appears Bruce is looking to expand his direct reports. Asleep at the wheel with ideas that are too little too late, Bruce’s die seems already cast.
Fairfax Media reported that “industry analysts were less optimistic that the strategy, which has cost $350 million to design and implement, would reap the rewards Sensis predicts.”
“This is a very sorry tale about a business that used to be promoted by the company as a star, capable of producing compound growth at around 7 per cent a year in the long term,” BBY analyst Mark McDonnell said.
“And today we are told that this is a business going backwards, with considerably more effort being put into providing more product, yet resulting in a reduction in earnings.”
Classic executive move. Remove the star performer and surround yourself with bumbling idiots. Makes the board of the parent company feel they can’t do without you.
“The fish stinks from the head down. Geoff Hoffman and Ang Buckley have used a similar approach to protecting their careers. Bruce obviously doesn’t have the ball to get rid of these useless corporate bullies. Geoff and Ang stifled the online department growth, protecting their turf. This allowed our competitors to give our customers what they wanted. The allowed our competitors to hire our disillusioned intellectual property. Geoff and Ang when approached about opportunities in the technological Digital space just brush it off or in Ang’s case looked confused and cackle laugh at the suggestion. How does some so obviously lacking intelligence and poor emotional maturity survive so long.
Blonde hair and a nice set of guns…….
When asked in a get to know you session what she liked she responded “big dicks & vodka”. Enough said
Good Lord! I left Sensis ten years ago and just stumbled across this hilarious website.
I am stunned that LaBuckley is still there. I remember attending a conference in the late nineties and my staff – who were nice, intelligent, hard working, well respected but fun average people were absolutely horrified by her immaturity – calling out crass names during presentations, maliciously stabbing anyone and everyone in the back and generally being a childish pain in the ass as she tried to undermine everyone who wasn’t in her court. They were completely shocked that she was a manager. When we returned to Sydney they couldn’t stop talking about how pathetic her need for attention was and how inappropriately she had behaved.
A Manager from another division warned my boss about the lovely Angela after he overheard her ripping my boss to pieces in a bar one evening. She told everyone present a number of nasty and untrue rumours and also how she was going to take my boss down. When confronted she turned to simpering treacle – and pleaded her way out of it. About three years later she had my bosses’ job.
I remember my Sydney based job being absolutely full on, encompassing so many different streams and areas of activity that 12 hour days were pretty much the norm. During teleconferences the main area of Angela’s activities seemed to be organising movie premieres for customers.
I suppose it’s not really surprising that she is still there. She really is a devisive, self serving nasty piece of work who seems to have ensured her own success at all costs.
I had a lot of fun working at Yellow Pages Australia, Pacific Access and Sensis and met some great people. Sadly it seems that the place is still suffering from the same problems it was fifteen years ago and has been ever since. It spends too much time naval gazing, is way too slow to move – I’ve seen them miss out on some amazing marketing opportunities through inactivity – is prone to cronie-ism, is out of touch with it’s market and staff and has too many layers of upper management who have lost touch with anything that matters. I could go on but won’t.
Good luck people. Don’t get too chewed up by this place – life outside is far sweeter and if there is such a thing as karma LaBuckley has it coming in spades. Was gobsmacked to read about her sister from hell!
x
Well said “marketeer”. I am also a former employee, having left 5 years ago. I can attest to the viciousness and immaturity mentioned here on this site.
But the overall message you made is very tru – life is much sweeter and more rewarding OUTSIDE of Senseless!
Guys – let the karnma bite these people on the backside – get out while you can, go find soe joy in your life, and let the materialistic, nasty managers feed on each other!