Is Andy Penn preparing for life after Telstra?

Illustration: Rod Clement

Nothing lasts forever, Andy Penn and wife Kallie Blauhorn know that.

Penn, 55, has been in the top job at the $33 billion under-siege telco for a bit over three years.

His predecessors in the job, CSIRO chair David Thodey, American import Sol Trujillo and nuclear physicist Ziggy Switkowsk i, all lasted longer than that in the tough role, but already Penn is working towards life after Telstra.

Construction is now all systems go at the 39-year-old Blauhorn and Penn’s $7 million-plus residential development project in Melbourne’s fashionable Prahran.

Last September the couple, who wed in Tuscany in 2016 serenaded by Aussie pop songstress Jessica Mauboy, paid $3.5m for a 525sq m warehouse site, all made possible thanks to a mortgage with agile Shayne Elliott’s ANZ.

The three-storey, 10 apartment, Daniel Ash-designed boutique is estimated to cost the couple $3.7m (although we all know these things always run over budget).

Towards all this, the newlyweds at the same time last year sold their South Yarra townhouse for $3.51m.

They still retain their expansive estate on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula where Penn spends much of his time painting in his art studio.

He describes his style as “experimental”. That might be a description first given by American Blauhorn, who for a short while had a stint as director of the sometimes revenue-challenged Monash Gallery of Art.

That gig appears to have lasted from about the same time as Penn started in the top office at Telstra to about the end of 2016 and not long after the pair ­married. After that, an interim director was put in place. Blauhorn’s LinkedIn profile still lists her in the role, which might come as news to the now permanent new director, Anouska Phizacklea.

It’s an understandable oversight, considering her time-consuming Prahran property play.

NBN hot seat

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull couldn’t be clearer. As the PM has been saying for months, the next federal election will not happen until 2019.

That has created a delicate situation for chairman Ziggy Switkowski and his distinguished colleagues on the board of the NBN, the nation’s biggest infrastructure project.

Current NBN chief executive Bill Morrow (the former Vodafone chief) announced in April that he was leaving the broadband behemoth by the year’s end.

The deadline means Ziggy and his politically astute NBN board colleagues — who include the PM’s former chief of staff Drew Clarke and ABC chairman Justin Milne — have the thorniest of problems for a government-owned enterprise.

They need to appoint a new CEO — in this case to run Australia’s most contentious building project — in the hyper-partisan environment of a looming election.

Team Shorten expects to be consulted about these things at this point in the political cycle, as Chris Bowen made clear with his upset about Scott Morrison’s recent appointments of the Treasurer’s former chief-of-staff Phil Gaetjens to the hallowed position of Treasury secretary and of Michael Brennan as the new chairman of the Productivity Commission.

If Team Shorten isn’t consulted, it reserves the right to make hell.

The result of all this is that Morrow’s successor is expected to be temporary and internal.

Margin Call hears a decision could be made as early as next month, with the NBN’s chief financial officer Stephen Rue believed to be the most likely acting boss.

Chief of network engineering P eter Ryan is also well regarded by Ziggy’s board and would be more than capable of steering the ship through to the other side of the 2019 federal election — unless Ziggy fancies a return to executive duties.

Who is he?

What does Stephen Elop actually do at Telstra?

It’s been a bit of a mystery since the Seattle-residing former Nokia CEO joined the telco in 2016.

The mystery remained unsolved yesterday when it was announced that Elop, along with three of his Telstra executive peers, were leaving Andy Penn’s embattled blue chip.

“He played a key role in bringing together the chief technology office and corporate strategy groups to support the company’s shift from an incumbent telco,” said Telstra in yesterday’s statement, sounding as confused about Elop’s recent role as many onlookers.

Departing Telstra exec and mystery man Stephen Elop. Picture: Hollie Adams

Unlike his fellow departing executives who are hanging around for a month or two (presumably because they have actual work to do), the Canadian-born Elop officially ends at Telstra today.

Such is Elop’s predilection for Washington state — where he lives and has spent most of his time during his two-year Telstra stint, and where Margin Call understands he will spend his final day as a Telstra exec — it may be a while before his Australian former colleagues notice his departure.

Chip off the old block

Some good news from London for the Turner clan.

Joanna Turner — the daughter of Flight Centre
co-founder Graham “Skroo” Turner — has had a thumping win in her trademark infringement case against Mark Parker’s sporting giant Nike.

Turner the younger founded the East London-based althleisure-wear brand LNDR, whose logo and name so impressed Nike that they all but pinched it earlier this year with their “LDNR” campaign.

And the American multinational probably would have got away with it, if only Joanna’s father was not a rich lister with a fortune worth $861m (more than enough to help fund the legal defence of his daughter’s fledgling business). That defence was successful, with judge Richard Arnold promptly finding in Turner’s favour.

So long as the yanks don’t lodge an appeal, it looks like Jo can get on with the business of making Margo Robbie’s gym clothes. Keep an eye out for her in future instalments of The Stensholt Index (coming to The Australian soon).