Vocus' consumer boss Sandra de Castro out as leadership handed to Belong founder Antony de Jong

Vocus's consumer lead Sandra de Castro will leave the company as part of a move to bring the division's leadership under Commander chief executive Antony de Jong.

The company announced in a statement to the ASX that de Jong would lead both the consumer segment and Commander, the SMB communication specialist business Vocus acquired as part of the M2 merger in 2016.

Vocus Consumer and Commander currently operate as their own distinct segments, but Vocus said that managing them together would be commercially logical due to their operational similarities.

As a result, several roles have been removed from the consumer segment, including de Castro's role as chief executive of consumer, and its head of finance.

de Castro joined Vocus at the start of 2018 when the company announced it would split its wholesale and enterprise divisions into two separate business units, dividing the company into four operating segments: enterprise and government, wholesale and international, New Zealand and consumer, the latter of which was led by de Castro.

The new management structure will be brought in in mid-2019.

de Jong is best known as the founder of Belong, the budget telco division of Telstra, which he started back in 2013 and led as managing director until his departure in March this year.

He joined Commander back in September as chief executive at time when Vocus said the business required "urgent remedial action" to turn around its fortunes.

Vocus reported that Commander's revenue had fallen 15 percent in the 2018 financial year to $204 million, blaming the poor performance on poor customer service, lack of investment and mismanaged opportunities with the NBN.

At the same time, the consumer business didn't fare much better, with revenue holding steady at $790 million.

Vocus made the decision to carve Commander out from the consumer business to address the performance, saying it would focus on building out digital end-to-end services and reducing customer churn.

Despite problems with the consumer business, Vocus said it was close to rightsizing its financial performance in August thanks to a new leadership team under new chief Kevin Russell. Revenue for the entire business remained steady at $1.9 billion for the 2017 financial year, while EBITDA grew seven percent to $360.4 million.