Optus has appointed current NBN chief Stephen Rue (Seen above) as its new CEO, following the exit of former CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin who was running the Singapore owned Company during two disastrous incidents that hurt the Companies brand reputation.
Rue is currently the highest paid public servant in Australia earning over $3M a year.
Optus Chairman Paul O’Sullivan said, “Stephen was chosen after a rigorous process that involved a slate of high-quality candidates.
“We’re extremely pleased to have someone of his calibre to lead the next chapter at Optus. His experience in setting up the digital backbone of Australia will serve us well as we reinvigorate Optus as Australia’s leading challenger telecommunications brand. We expect Stephen’s operational and financial background to lift service standards significantly for the benefit of our customers.”
Rue said, “I’m honoured and excited to be given the opportunity to lead Optus, a company that has strived to serve Australians for over two decades. Optus’ continuous investments in critical infrastructure through the years has resulted in an extensive 5G network that is being strengthened in regional Australia.
“My job will be to take care of Optus’ customers, people, and business and to provide strong competition and choice. I look forward to accelerating the transformation at Optus so fellow Australians continue to have the choice of a strong alternative telecom’s provider and the country as a whole can harness the power of digital connectivity to drive economic participation and social inclusion.”.
Mr Rue was formerly NBN’s chief financial officer, and has previously worked for News Corp.
Mr Rue’s appointment comes after Optus said it would partner with TPG Telecom to create a new joint regional network that will generate more than $1 billion for the Singaporean-owned group.
The appointment comes as Telstra wallows in poor customer service issues.
Rosmarin’s exit was not pretty late last year and follows a disastrous Senate appearance probing the networks outage last year that left 10 million customers without the ability to make phone calls or access the internet.
