Dr Carr replaces long serving CEO Mr Bruce Thompson whose intended departure was announced on 2 March 2007.  Mr Thompson has resigned from the board effective 17 May 2007 but will remain with Keycorp until 1 July 2007.

Dr Carr was most recently Group Chief Executive Officer of LongReach Group Limited, an Australian publicly listed company, prior to its merger in early November 2006 with Allied Technology Ltd.  He has held senior executive roles and completed significant mergers and acquisitions with organisations such as IBM Global Services Australia, Lucent Technologies, Computer Sciences of Australia and Unisys Australia Limited.  He has a depth of experience in the telecommunications industry, having worked for telecommunications carriers such as British Telecom and AT&T, and was involved in the second licence bid and creation of Optus.

Strong sales growth and market expansion have been the hallmarks of Dr Carr’s leadership.  During his time at Lucent Australia, with Asia Pacific regional responsibility for the business solutions unit, Dr Carr grew the business and increased profitability by adopting an indirect channel model and joint ventures, with all of the growth coming from outside of Australia.  Whilst at IBM Global Services he grew the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and e-business group from US$1.7 million to US$48 million, leading significant projects at Telstra, Optus and other large organisations overseas.

Dr Carr will remain a non-executive director of LongReach Group Limited for a period and is a former director of Lucent Technologies Australia Pty. Ltd., Tata Lucent Technologies India and a private consulting business.  He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from the International Management Centre – United Kingdom (IMC UK) and University of Southern Cross, Australia, an MBA from IMC UK and Buckingham University and a Bachelor of Science (Avionics) from the RAF.