London, United Kingdom - September 3, 2013, London, United Kingdom - Spirent Communications plc, a communications technology company, announces that William J. Burns, chief executive officer, will step down from the board and leave the company, effective immediately.
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Mr. Burns has been Group Chief Executive Officer of Spirent Communications Plc since November 2008. Mr. Burns served as the Chief Executive Officer of Communications Group of Spirent Communications Plc. He served as Executive Vice President of the Communications group and President for Service Assurance Broadband of Spirent Communications PLC and Spirent Communications Inc. since November 15, 2004.
Previously, he served as Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Tellabs, Inc., which he joined in 1987. Prior to this, he was Senior Vice President, Europe, Middle East and Africa for Tellabs, based in the UK, and held several Senior Sales Management and Sales Engineering Positions at Spirent PLC. He has been a Director of Spirent Communications Plc since November 2008.
He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration, with a specialization in Engineering, from College Misericordia, Pennsylvania and an MBA from Temple University, Pennsylvania.
Eric G. Hutchinson, Chief Financial Officer, will become Chief Executive Officer whilst continuing to oversee Spirent's highly experienced finance team.
Mr. Hutchinson has been the Chief Financial Officer of Spirent Communications PLC (formerly, Spirent PLC) since January 1, 2000. Mr. Hutchinson has been the Chief Financial Officer of Spirent Communications Inc. since January 1, 2000. He served as Finance Director of Spirent Communications PLC since January 1, 2000 and which he joined in 1983 and served as its Chief Accountant since 1987.
Since 1997, Mr. Hutchinson served as the Head of Financial Reporting and Control with responsibility for all financial reporting and control within Spirent PLC, for 12 years. He trained as an Accountant with Thomas McLintock & Co. (now KPMG) in 1977 went to Trinity College Oxford to undertake post graduate research and worked in the Treasurer's department for South Oxfordshire District Council.
He joined the Economic Forestry Group as Group Accountant before joining Bowthorpe Group as a Financial Accountant in one of its manufacturing subsidiaries. He has been a Director at Spirent Communications PLC since January 2000. He served as a Non-Executive Director of Trifast PLC from June 21, 2004 to March 2009 and served as Senior Independent Non Executive Director until March 2009. ■