Optus, with added Gladys Berejiklian, snags lucrative NSW contract; Bridget Loudon’s modest Telstra stake
Optus’s recruitment of former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian appears to be paying substantial dividends barely six months into her appointment, with the telco this week snaffling a lucrative government contract from rival Telstra to run the inbound calls for Service NSW.
It just so happens that Service NSW is nestled within the portfolio of none other than Digital Minister Victor Dominello, whose political career was started in 2008 when Berejiklian coaxed him off a lilo in the waters off Mexico, where he was wondering what to do with his life, and persuaded him to run for NSW parliament.
The pair have remained immensely close ever since; Dominello, who cannot complete a day’s work without posting a selfie online, was one of three supporting ministers who attended Berejiklian’s final press conference on October 1 when she announced her resignation as premier.
Alongside him was terminal grouch Brad Hazzard and the unctuous Liberal Party salesman Matt Kean, whose tears at Berejiklian’s departure – a result of a corruption inquiry due to publish its findings within months – soon dried amid the jostling for leadership positions that followed her exit.
Berejiklian re-emerged in February at Optus – where her sister, Mary, worked for a number of years – securing an executive role as managing director of enterprise, business and institutional under netball tragic Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, the telco’s chief executive.
We haven’t heard much out of the former premier since, save for a one-off showering of arrows on Twitter attacking Telstra’s proposed network-sharing deal with rival TPG – even though Optus once itself considered a similar deal with TPG.
But given her successor, Dominic Perrottet, appears to be clinging to a final few months in office, it would thus seem prudent for Berejiklian to leverage whatever remaining skeins of allegiance she still holds within his government, while it lasts.
On Thursday it was revealed that Optus had won a three-year contract to manage the inbound services business for Service NSW, an agency that continues to hold jewel-like prestige in Dominello’s portfolio, despite his effusive public apologies whenever it breaks down.
According to Service NSW, the contract was awarded after Optus was found to be the most competitive provider during an analysis of inbound call expenditure.
It means the telco will take carriage of the agency’s 137 788 number that connects callers to 110 service centres.
And which team negotiated the deal? Optus confirmed the contract was won by its enterprise and business team, led by Berejiklian, although a spokesman said she was “not directly involved in the deal”.
Optus later added that Berejiklian had “not herself interacted with the NSW government for her first 18 months – she has a team who manages our strong relationship with the NSW government”.
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Telstra hang-up
Telstra chair John Mullens might consider his youngest board director Bridget Loudon to be his golden girl, but the management consultant turned tech entrepreneur has not matched her vaunted passion for the telecom giant with any skin of her own in the company.
Loudon, 34, the founder and creator of recruitment technology platform Expert360, loves boasting of her enthusiasm for the dominant telco.
“The board and management team at Telstra are just exceptional,” Loudon told a recent interview.
“That they’ve let an entrepreneur into the den to challenge is a sign of how dedicated they are to transforming one of Australia’s most iconic organisations.”
So exceptional and iconic that Loudon, who’s paid $236,000-a-year to sit at the board table, has amassed a grand total of 2500 Telstra shares to her name.
No zeros missing – just 2500 shares worth less than $10,000.
According to Telstra’s latest annual report – out on Thursday – this leaves Loudon, now into her third year as a Telstra director, awaiting a final dividend payment of a whopping $212.50.
Enough, we think, for a visit to the Icebergs Dining Room near her freshly purchased digs in Bondi Beach.
Plenty of time still for Loudon to accrue the minimum Telstra hold of 235,000 shares, which she has just under three years to achieve.
To pull that off at the current share price, her outlay is going to amount to something in the neighbourhood of $1m.
As for outgoing Telstra chief Andy Penn, who must be counting the days until his exit at the end of the month, he has amassed 2.56 million shares in the company, giving him a full year dividend of $422,000.
The board’s tokenistic 0.5 cent hike in that final distribution should add $12,500 to his personal fortune, although we can’t discount the additional 1.5 million performance rights that have the potential to convert to ordinary shares if targets are met.
As for his pay, Penn is going out with a bang, taking home a final full-year total remuneration package of $8.4m, up from $5.8m last year.
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Experts ejected
Meanwhile, Loudon might still have her shine on at Telstra, but what of the internal fallout from job cuts that the entrepreneur has been forced to execute at her company, Expert360, this week?
Loudon told her 23,000-odd LinkedIn followers on Thursday that she had been forced to shed seven workers who had become superfluous to the enterprise, owing to changes in the market for skilled talent.
“The past few months has (sic) seen big fluctuations in supply and demand dynamics in our Expert community, namely supply starting to catch up with huge demand for top talent,” Louden posted.
“As a result, it is with such a heavy heart that we needed to close 7 roles in our Australian business yesterday.”
It’s a blow to Loudon’s ambition to helm one of the world’s biggest job platforms for freelance workers, as well as her plans to take the company public, which she likes to mention from time to time.
Records show that the company has in the order of $30m in fully paid preference shares on issue, which would give holders a higher claim on company assets than ordinary investors.
Louden directly holds about 46 per cent of total ordinary shares on issue, a bountiful share compared with that of Telstra, should the shift in “supply and demand dynamics” continue to threaten the company’s prospects.
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Positions vacant
No shortage of roles up for grabs at Sportsbet, where officials are advertising for several prominent positions across a range of divisions.
This will shortly include a vacancy for a chief legal and risk officer, currently held by Julie Ryan, who is departing in a matter of weeks.
Ryan is said to be leaving for personal reasons but is slated to continue consulting for Sportsbet, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
The company recently suffered a mishap that saw some account statements mailed to the wrong clients, although the same sources said this had no bearing on Ryan’s departure and was the responsibility of another division entirely.
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