The chief of Australia’s second-largest telecom company Optus resigned on Monday (Nov 20) after a massive network-wide outage, earlier this month and one of Australia’s largest data breaches, last year.
Kelly Bayer Rosmarin ended her more than three-year tumultuous tenure as the CEO, after being under pressure having headed Optus through two national scandals that have tarnished the reputation of the Australian telecom giant.
‘An honour to serve’
In a statement, the now-former CEO said it had been “an honour to serve” but it was now appropriate for her to step down. “Having now had time for some personal reflection, I have come to the decision that my resignation is in the best interest of Optus moving forward,” the statement added.
Optus’ parent company, Singapore Telecommunications, announced Rosmarin’s resignation days after a network-wide outage left nearly half of Australia’s 26 million people without phone or internet for 12 hours.
The chief executive of Optus’ Singaporean parent company, Yuen Kuan Moon thanked her for her hardwork during a “challenging period,” referring to how she contributed to improving financial performance despite being appointed at the beginning of the pandemic, in 2020.
Rosmarin’s resignation also came after a parliamentary hearing on Friday (Nov 18) where Optus executives admitted that they had no contingency plan for an outage of that scale.
The recent outage not only sparked anger and frustration among Australians but also raised concerns about the country’s telecommunications infrastructure.
The now-former CEO also told the hearing that around 200 calls to Australian emergency hotline Triple-0 had failed but the company made sure to follow up on all the incidents and reported that “thankfully everybody is OK”.
The outage on November 8 also caused transport delays, cut hospital phone lines, and shut down payment systems. She told the Senate hearing that thousands of Australians were pursuing the telecom company for compensation.
Notably, the company is also in the midst of fighting another class action lawsuit brought by more than 100,000 current and former customers over a massive data breach last year which affected 10 million people and is believed to be the worst one in Australian history.
What now?
In the meantime, Rosmarin will be replaced by the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Michael Venter while the firm looks for a replacement, as Optus works on regaining customer confidence.
“We recognise the need for Optus to regain customer trust and confidence as the team works through the impact and consequences of the recent outage and continues to improve,” said Moon, in a statement.
(With inputs from agencies)
