McFadden, Spradley leave Nortel

Longtime Nortel Networks executives Brian McFadden and Sue Spradley have left the company, according to a research note issued this afternoon from UBS Investment. UBS believes the management changes may be just the first to come from Mike Zafirovski, who became Nortel’s new chief executive officer two weeks ago.

Nortel has so far not announced any change in the two executives’ roles, and the company could not immediately be reached for comment.

“In our view, the new CEO has started taking aggressive measures toward right-sizing [Nortel’s] business model,” UBS said. “We believe these steps are early signs of a more significant [reorganization] with further [executive] and [non-executive] reductions and changes expected.”

McFadden was a 28-year veteran of Nortel, serving as its chief technology officer from August 2004 until April of this year, when he was named chief research officer. Before becoming CTO, McFadden was president of Nortel’s optical networks business, which has been heavily restructured in recent years amid a turbulent market.

Spradley had been with the company for 18 years, serving since August 2004 as its president of Global Operations. Before that, Spradley was president of Nortel’s wireline division, which had also seen significant restructuring. In a late September realignment of Nortel’s business units, the company said Spradley would remain president of global services and operations.