Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD) has poached one of the senior Nortel Networks Ltd. executives that had survived the recent management purge at the vendor.

The mobile giant today announced Steve Pusey as its new CTO, replacing Tim Miles, who is leaving to return to New Zealand with his family. Pusey, who will start his new job on September 1, was Nortel's President for the EMEA region, and has been with the vendor for 20 years.

His departure will be a blow to Nortel. According to sources close to the vendor, he was one of the few old guard Nortel executives prized by new CEO Mike Zafirovski, who has been keeping the company's executive name plate engraver busy since he took over late last year. (See A Roese Is a Roese Is a New CTO, Nortel Shuffles APAC Execs, Nortel Names CMO, Nortel Names Services Prez, Zafirovski Adds Another GE Exec to Nortel, and Nortel Poaches Juniper Strategist.)

That staffing overhaul is all part of the CEO's battle to introduce a new strategy and take Nortel into a new era and leave its recent past, blighted by its accounting scandal, behind. (See Nortel Sees $1B From Microsoft Alliance, Nortel CEO: We're Ready to Deal, Nortel Still Haunted by Accounting Woes, Nortel CEO Maps Out His Vision, and Nortel's New Faces Face Tough Task.)

Now Nortel has a new President of EMEA in Darryl Edwards, who steps up from his role as president of Northern Europe, Middle East, and NETAS, Nortel's joint venture in Turkey. Edwards has been with the company for 14 years.

He is now responsible for a region that pulls in about a quarter of Nortel's revenues. In the first quarter of this year, EMEA revenues were $631 million, or 26.5 percent of the $2.38 billion total.

For Pusey, the change in job will be from one company in transition to another, as Vodafone has had its share of telecom turbulence in the past year. (See Vodafone CEO Faces Showdown, Vodafone Unveils Convergence Plans, Vodafone Cashes In on Japan, Ericsson Wins Japan 3G Deal, and Vodafone Rings Warning Bell.)

Nortel's share price is up one cent today at $1.97, near its 12-month low. Vodafone's share price closed down nearly 2 percent at 114.25 pence today in London.

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading