Quickflix hires another ex-Telstra exec

Readies for digital

Quickflix has made its second high profile appointment in less than a week, snaring the former director of Telstra Media, Chris Taylor as its new CEO.

Last week, the online DVD rental company announced that Justin Milne, the former head of Telstra Big Pond and Telstra Media, had joined the company as deputy chairman.

The appointments follow Quickflix's acquisition of the Telstra's BigPond Movies DVD rental business.

While at Telstra, Taylor spearheaded the launch of Telstra’s IPTV services which included streaming movies through the T-Box and other connected platforms. Prior to Telstra he held a range of roles at PBL including CEO of Prime Television New Zealand and MD of the Nine Network Queensland.

“He is one of the few media and entertainment executives in Australia with hands-on IPTV experience and has an in-depth understanding of how to engage audiences through movie and TV content. Chris joins our expanded national team of entertainment, media and technology executives and we are in excellent shape to go very hard at driving growth in what is a large market opportunity,” said Quickflix founder and executive chairman Stephen Langsford.

The investment in Taylor and Milne signals that Quickflix are ready to turn the business into a fully fledged digital distribution platform for entertainment content.

For the last year Taylor has been the global CEO for mobile media and payments start-up YuuZoo which operates in 164 countries.

Yuuzoo has operated under the radar in Australia is poised to list on Nasdaq. The company provides payment solutions for a range of fixed and mobile digital services including IPTV. While losing Taylor to Quickflix, it has recently gained former founding Optus CEO Bob Mansfield as a consultant and new board member.

Langsford ruled out any ties between Quickflix and YuuZoo.

Taylor said “Quickflix’s online DVD rental subscription business is very well positioned to capture a large share of the $600 million per annum currently spent in physical DVD rental stores in Australia and the further $1 billion in DVD retail in Australia. More than 80 per cent of households in Australia have a DVD player and internet access and are all potential Quickflix subscribers.”