00:00This isn't quite the Friday afternoon, take out the garbage sort of announcement that
00:06we got back in September. You have to remember that news broke in the afternoon around about
00:114.45. The press conference was arranged for 5.30 and we learnt of the triple zero outage
00:17at Optus. Now Stephen Rue fronted the cameras and he had to explain what had happened. Now
00:24fast forward several weeks and over that period of time there have been calls for Stephen
00:28Rue to step down or some sort of accountability. Now this afternoon what Optus has said is
00:34that two of its senior executives will depart the company. Now it's just important to give
00:39some context around this because the CFO or Chief Financial Officer will depart, his name
00:45is Michael Venter. Now in terms of the structure of an organisation and the sort of the executive
00:52leadership structure, the chairman oversees or the chairperson oversees everything and is
00:57accountable to Singtel. But under the chairman are a number of directors. Now included in
01:02that is the CEO Stephen Rue. Under him is the CFO, the Chief Financial Officer and under him
01:11is the CIO or Chief Investment Officer. So there's sort of three or four pegs down in terms of the
01:17leadership structure. So Michael Venter is the CFO, he's going and Mark Potter is the CIO and he's leaving
01:26as well. Both of them look to be quote in quotes retiring early next year. I guess the other important
01:33thing to say is that when it comes to transitions it's usual for people in these leadership positions to
01:44have some sort of plan in terms of their career to smooth over what is a very difficult leadership
01:53transition. So if you say I'm going to retire at this point then the board can work out how
02:00the leadership structure can change to make sure that you can leave at that time without causing any
02:05major policy or structural issues within the company. What is curious about this release from
02:11Optus this afternoon is that it makes it clear that the departure of Michael Venter and Mark Potter
02:17is planned and yet when the chair and CEO are quoted in the press release they say
02:24that both of them decided to retire. So make of that what you will but given the scandals that have
02:31plagued Optus since 2023 and in fact before that and the fact that Optus is going to face a senate vote
02:39next week about whether or not there's going to be a senate inquiry into the triple zero outage
02:45that was linked to three deaths. It's the timing of this announcement of the leadership transition
02:52is curious to say the least. Okay so that's the CFO and the CIO. What about the CEO Stephen Rue?
02:58Well he certainly made headlines over the past few weeks because he's the the face of Optus or the
03:06figurehead. He's certainly the guy that gets up in front of the cameras on a Friday afternoon to
03:10explain what's happened. What what happened after that press conference and that the news broke was
03:16that I guess the government had to get involved because it is so important to be able to make a phone
03:23call using an Optus handset if you need emergency services and that wasn't able to happen. It was
03:30linked to three deaths deaths so the minister had to step in. Now as part of that Singtel which is the
03:37parent company of Optus was actually dragged to Australia to join the chair and to join the CEO
03:43in talking to the communications minister. Now after that press conference in Sydney the Singtel CEO
03:51again the company that owns Optus made it very clear that Stephen Rue was originally appointed
03:57to fix up Optus. So this is just business correspondent David Taylor talking here but it would
04:03be very odd for the departure of Stephen Rue to be announced after the Singtel CEO has said something
04:10like that. So for the moment he's safe but the departures that have been sold as retirements
04:18aren't too far behind Stephen Rue in terms of their hierarchy.
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