Telstra exec shake-up on sudden Ebeid exit

Former SBS boss Michael Ebeid has been looking after the telecom giant’s corporate and government customers for the past two years.

Michael Ebeid. Picture: Stuart McEvoy for The Australian.

Telstra has seen another reshuffling of its senior executive team following the departure of Michael Ebeid, who has been looking after the telecom giant’s key corporate and government customers for the past two years.

Mr Ebeid the former boss of broadcaster SBS, who has left to pursue an undisclosed opportunity – is the latest in a string of executives to leave the telco in recent years, raising questions over longer-term succession planning.

Key exits include former chief financial officer Warwick Bray, former chief operating officer Robyn Denholm and former new businesses executive Cynthia Whelan.

Mr Ebeid will be replaced as group executive of Telstra’s enterprise division by David Burns, who currently heads its global business services unit.

In turn, Telstra has tapped Jetstar Airways chief operating officer Dean Salter to take over from Mr Burns, who has been with the telco for more than eight years.

Telstra chief executive Andrew Penn said Mr Ebeid, who ran SBS for more than seven years until mid-2018, had overseen many changes, including its restructuring plans.

“Michael has led the team in delivering its T22 priorities as well as transforming our Enterprise products and services to better meet customer needs and respond to an environment that is changing at an ever increasingly rapid pace including launching Telstra Purple and our recent adaptive networks announcement,” Mr Penn said in a statement on Tuesday.

Mr Penn, who had led the telco since 2015, also said Mr Ebeid led a “significant improvement” in staff engagement and the group is “sorry to see him go”.

Telstra said Mr Ebeid is leaving to “pursue other business interests” but didn’t provide any details.

On professional social network site LinkedIn, Mr Ebeid said he had decided to “step down” from his role after a “great couple of years”.

“For lots of reason, this is the right time for me to depart and I am super excited about exploring a new business opportunity,” he said on Tuesday.

The announcement of Mr Ebeid’s departure from Telstra, understood to be at the end of the week, comes a fortnight after the telco sought to reassure jittery shareholders about future dividend payments.

Speaking at Telstra’s first virtual annual shareholder meeting, chairman John Mullen said the group would temporarily exceed its payout ratio to pay a dividend if needed, and that the board was “acutely aware of the importance of the dividend to shareholders”.

He also said the telco was still looking to deliver underlying earnings of between $7.5bn to $8.5bn in the 2021 financial year, despite headwinds from COVID-19 and the NBN. Telstra is scheduled to hold a virtual investor day on November 12.

Mr Salter is expected to join Telstra no later than March and in the interim, global business services executive Andrew McPherson will lead the team.