Dr Claire Barber

Claire Barber is the Chief Digital Officer for Spark New Zealand, and leads Spark Platforms. A key partner to Spark Home, Mobile and Business, Spark Digital and Spark Ventures, and drawing on expertise from across the company, Spark Platforms is responsible for ensuring that our products and services are truly digital and that our customers’ needs are at the centre of everything we do.

Claire joined Spark in July 2011 as General Manager of Change and Technology, where she led strategic initiatives that include IT in-sourcing, developing new operating models, and simplifying processes and products. Her team was responsible for a three year, multi-million dollar re-engineering programme that has successfully modernized Spark’s legacy IT systems and migrated millions of customer records to those systems, resulting in faster delivery of customer services. Claire’s team was also critical in managing Spark’s rebrand in 2014.

Claire brings to the role more than 20 years of experience in international technology and telecommunications, having held sales and management roles at IBM, working with clients in China and India and the Asia Pacific region. Prior to that, she was a lecturer and assistant dean at the University of Auckland, and has a PhD from University of Northumbria in the UK.