Australia Post CEO Ahmed Fahour has quit following a very public brawl and confrontation with business leaders and politicians.
His resignation has come on a day that Australia Post lifted its profits to $131 million in the half year to December 2016, up from $16 million a year earlier.
During the past twelve months, Australia Post has been openly cuddling up to online powerhouses Amazon and Alibaba.
In Melbourne earlier this month, Australia Post announced a partnership with Alibaba to gain access to its majority-owned Lazada retail platform that operates in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. Australia Post plans to use Lazada to extend its existing partnership with Alibaba, which sees it operating shopfronts on behalf of smaller Australian companies on its platform.
Fahour will leave Australia Post in July after seven years at the company, in which he is credited with “transforming the business” according to chairman John Stanhope.
“When he started, he was set the challenge to ‘write the next chapter in the history of Australia Post’ – and he certainly rose to that challenge,” Mr Stanhope said.
“Now, with the business entering the next phase of its transformation, Ahmed’s decision to resign provides opportunity for a new leader to continue the development of Australia Post into a leading international eCommerce player.”
Pre-tax profit for parcels during the six month period increased by 15.6% to $189 million, while group profit before tax increased from $1 million to $197 million.
“Today over 70 per cent of our revenue and 100 per cent of our profit is derived from commercial activities in parcels and ecommerce,” Mr Fahour said.
“We are delivering more parcels than ever before, with domestic parcel volumes up 5 per cent in the first half, market share increasing and at the same time we’re trialling new delivery innovations like evening and weekend deliveries to give our customers an even better experience.”
