David Burns has three decades of experience in the telecommunications and technology sectors, having held a variety of strategic roles with IBM across Australia, the Asia Pacific region, North America and the United Kingdom, before joining Telstra in 2012. As group managing director of global services and international at Telstra, Mr Burns is responsible for designing, building and managing an integrated services capability for Telstra’s business, enterprise and government customers in Australia and around the world. He is also responsible for leading Telstra's business outside Australia, including approximately 3,500 people in 20 countries and the largest submarine cable network and integrated data centre footprint in the Asia Pacific region. Mr Burns became a group executive of global business services in August 2018 and group executive of enterprise in October 2020.
Just prior to joining Telstra, Mr Burns was based in London as general manager of IBM Global Technology Services and was responsible for IBM’s IT services and outsourcing sales and delivery functions for the UK and Ireland. He has also held a number of industry-facing roles at IBM covering the financial services, utilities and government sectors. Mr Burns began his career as a marketing representative at IBM in Adelaide.
He holds a Bachelor of Business, Marketing and Entrepreneurship from the South Australian Institute of Technology (now known as the University of South Australia).
