© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: View of an Optus store in Sydney, Australia November 8, 2023. REUTERS/Kirsty Needham/File Photograph
By Lewis Jackson
(Reuters) – The pinnacle of Australia’s second-largest telco Optus resigned on Monday, reducing quick a greater than three-year tenure marred by an enormous network-wide outage and considered one of Australia’s largest information breaches.
Father or mother Singapore Telecommunications introduced the resignation of Optus CEO Kelly Bayer (OTC:) Rosmarin days after a network-wide outage left almost half of Australia’s 26 million individuals with out cellphone or web for 12 hours.
Chief Monetary Officer Michael Venter will take over as interim CEO, Singtel stated in a press release.
Rosmarin stated she determined to resign after time for private reflection following a parliamentary listening to on Friday the place Optus executives stated the corporate had no contingency plan in place for an outage of that scale.
“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,” she said in the statement.
Appointed in April 2020, Rosmarin headed Optus through two national scandals that have tarnished the reputation of the telco giant. A massive data hack last year exposed the personal data of 10 million Australians and triggered a class action lawsuit and multiple investigations from regulators.
The company was dealt a fresh blow earlier this month when a 12-hour network blackout hit more than 10 million Australians, triggering fury and frustration among customers and raising wider concerns about the telecommunications infrastructure.
Optus executives told the parliamentary hearing on Friday the telco provider had not foreseen a network-wide outage and so had no backup plan in place.
Rosmarin told the hearing hundreds of calls to Australian emergency hotline Triple-0 failed because of the outage although the telco had followed up all incidents and “fortunately everyone is OK”.
Singtel said last week a fault in Optus’ security systems caused the failure, not a routine software upgrade as previously suspected.
Rosmarin increased Optus’ market share and improved financial performance during her tenure, Single said in a statement.
“We recognise the necessity for Optus to regain buyer belief and confidence because the workforce works by way of the affect and penalties of the latest outage and continues to enhance,” SingTel Group CEO Yuen Kuan Moon stated in a press release.
Peter Kaliaropoulos was additionally appointed to a newly created place of chief working officer.
(This story has been corrected to vary date of Optus community outage to earlier this month, not final week, in paragraph 7)
