Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin calls it quits in wake of nationwide outage debacle

The chief executive of Optus has bowed to immense public and political pressure and announced she will quit the job less than two weeks after a nationwide outage left 10 million customers without internet and telephone services. Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said during a Senate grilling into the embarrassing network debacle on Friday that the focus was on customers, not on her tenure. But on Monday, Ms Bayer Rosmarin said had tendered her resignation to Optus owner, Singapore’s Singtel. “On Friday I had the opportunity to appear before the Senate to expand on the cause of the network outage and how Optus recovered and responded,” she said in a statement released early Monday morning. “I was also able to communicate Optus’ commitment to restore trust and continue to serve customers. 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. “It’s been an honour and privilege to lead the team at Optus and to serve our customers. I am proud of the team’s many achievements, and grateful for the support of the Optus team, [Singtel chief executive Yuen Kuan] Moon, and the group. I wish everyone and the company every success in the future.” Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the outage caused significant disruption to the community, particularly small businesses. “We need to learn the lessons to ensure industry and Government is as prepared as possible, given no network is fully immune,” Ms Rowland said. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young — who lead the Parliamentary probe into the outage and was among Ms Bayer Rosmarin’s harshest critics — said the inquiry was not a witch hunt, but instead about ensuring millions of Australians have access to what is an essential service. Optus has faced growing consumer anger since the outage on November 8, which left millions of customers without access to internet services and calls on their home and mobile phones. It also left some customers without the ability to contact emergency services. “The Senate Inquiry will continue to focus on solutions, including stronger regulations for telecommunications companies, so that in the evident of outages and network failures the community can have confidence that their public interests and safety is protected,” she said. Thousands of businesses were also impacted — some losing thousands of dollars when payment systems reliant on Optus connections crashed. Hospital services were also affected. Optus is already facing class actions over another blunder in September last year when hackers exploited a weakness in the company’s firewall to access key information such as customers’ names, dates of birth, emails and, for some, complete ID documentation such as driver’s licences and passport details. Singtel late last week denied a software upgrade had caused the outage. Mr Yuen said Singtel recognise the need for Optus to regain customer trust and confidence as it works through the impact and consequences of the November 8 outage. Singtel has appointed chief financial officer Michael Venter to step into the CEO’s role while it launches a global search to find a replacement. He joined Optus as CFO in 2021, bringing 25 years of business experience in Australia and Asia to the role. “Kelly has always led with integrity and had all stakeholders’ best interests at heart. We understand her decision and wish her the very best in her future endeavours,” Mr Yuen said. “Optus is an integral part of our group’s business. We view the events in recent weeks very seriously. We fully recognise the importance of Optus’ role in providing connectivity services to the community customers and regain their trust and confidence.” In other changes announced at the telco, Optus business managing director Peter Kaliaropoulous will enter into a newly created position, chief operating officer, from Wednesday. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the Optus outage was “a shocker” with so many people and businesses left with no information as to what was going on. “Clearly, this was just a complete failure,” he told Sky News on Monday. “The CEO has resigned – that, of course, is not surprising, given the circumstances which are there” He said Communications Minister Michelle Rowland had been giving people more information than Optus was during the crisis. Firey Senate session During her appearance before the Senate on Friday, Ms Bayer Rosmarin admitted that Optus’ performance on November 8 was “not acceptable”. She said it was “indisputable that on that day our performance was not acceptable”. “We let you down, and for that I am deeply sorry. I want to make it clear that we have taken immediate and ongoing steps to rectify any shortcomings,” she said. She confirmed to the inquiry that it had taken Optus days to determine what had caused the outage. Ultimately, it found that key routers had disconnected from the network during a scheduled upgrade. Optus had been widely lashed for failing to adequately communicate with customers during the outage, and in the weeks since. Ms Hanson Young told ABC on Friday that for a “communications company, they’re not very good at communicating”. During her grilling by senators, Ms Bayer Rosmarin defended not appearing publicly earlier, telling the inquiry her focus had been on the company’s response to the incident. She said she wanted to affirm the outage wasn’t a result of a “malicious or ongoing attack” before speaking. Once that was ruled out about 10.20am on the day, Ms Bayer Rosmarin said she began speaking publicly, giving 11 radio and TV interviews and four print journalist interviews. Ms Bayer Rosmarin denied suggestions she should have fronted up earlier, claiming it was “very unusual” for a chief executive to appear in the media during an outage. “It’s actually unusual for a CEO to appear at all during an outage because the public would expect that my focus is on working with the team to resolve the issue,” she said. “Our communications team was giving updates to the media fielding questions, and the team had the view at the time that this was being covered widely and all our customers knew what we knew, which is that the network was down, that we were working on it, and that we were very sorry.”