Datacom group chief executive Michael Browne died of a heart attack this weekend.

The 46-year-old was just promoted this month to his new role after being responsible for Datacom’s Australian and Asian businesses for over 10 years.

Datacom, a privately owned New Zealand company, was founded in 1965 and employs over 3000 staff in Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia with over $600m in revenues.

Chairman John Holdsworth announced Mr Browne’s promotion on July 21, saying he would have full responsibility for all the operations within Datacom and work closely with NZ chief executive Greg Davidson.

Davidson confirmed Sydney-based Browne died on Saturday.

\”As you can imagine this a really tough moment for all of us. We are sort of working on dealing with what’s happened and communicating it to staff.\”

Staff were notified yesterday.

– NZPA

Reference: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10663086