Uphill battle ahead for Optus chief who is really just a figure head

From left to right: Senator Hollie Hughes, Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin and Senator Sarah Hanson-Young. Picture: NCA Newswire/Martin Ollman

It was not their intention, but three female senators’ interrogation of the Optus chief executive delivered a blow to the aspirations of good female executives to take the top job.

Perhaps the biggest mistake of Kelly Bayer Rosmarin was to accept the position of Optus CEO and appear to have control of the Australian company when she was really was taking a role as a divisional head of a Singapore government controlled company Singtel.

The Senate Environment and Communications committee including chairman Sarah Hanson-Young (Greens) Karen Grogan (ALP) and Sarah Henderson (Liberals) should have demand that the chief executive of Optus parent Singtel, Kuan Moon Yuen, front the Australian parliamentary committee as well as his divisional chief and Optus CEO.

Its now clear that any person (male or female) who takes on the role of chief executive of a company vulnerable to a major catastrophe that could impact Australian consumers and businesses can be can expect to be hauled before a parliamentary committee and be forced to justify their actions minute by minute as the catastrophe unfolded.

In the case of the Optus CEO the backup system that had been installed by her predecessors did not envisage what that took place at 4.05am on November 8.

And the fact that key technology mistakes were allegedly made in Singapore made it hard for Australian technology executives to work out what an earth had gone wrong to cause the total collapse of the network.

Bayer Rosmarin made a strategic decision in the early hours of the crisis that her time was best spent helping the technology team solve the problem rather than personally making statements that Optus in Australia did not know what had happened were trying to solve the mystery and restore the network.

She left media communications to a team operating that area.

Maybe that was the wrong decision and she should have been making personal “don’t know” statements to satisfy breakfast media people and online communicators.

And as always happens after a crisis when people are interrogated about what they did minute by minute and why there was not a sufficient backup to minimise the catastrophe, minor slip ups are revealed which aggressive interveners can use to trap the CEO.

In the case of Bayer Rosmarin her task was made more difficult because she carefully avoided dobbing in her boss Kuan Moon Yuen or mentioning a key Optus business executive, former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

The interrogation by Hanson-Young, Grogan and Henderson reached a crescendo with this exchange.

Henderson: “Mrs Bayer Rosmarin, this morning there was a media report that you intend to resign as CEO. Is it your intention to resign?”

Bayer Rosmarin: “I’m sure you can appreciate that my entire focus has been on restoring the outage issue and working with the team. It has not been a time to be thinking about myself.”

Henderson: “Could you address the question. Are you intending to resign?”

Bayer Rosmarin: “I thought I answered the question. My focus is on the team, the customers and the community. My focus is not on myself.”

Henderson: “So that report is not correct?”

Bayer Rosmarin: “I haven’t seen any reports today. I’ve been preparing for being here.”

Every executive reading the Senate interrogation would question whether they want to be a CEO and face that sort of experience.

But it’s particularly relevant to female executives, not just because the Bayer Rosmarin interrogation was conducted against a female, but because becoming a female CEO is a big step without facing potential destruction by politicians.

And in many ways Kelly Bayer Rosmarin was a role model for up-and-coming female executives. She performed well at the Commonwealth Bank but was pipped for the CEO job by Matt Comyn.

Then she went to Optus which was hit by a cyber attack but she managed not only to retain most of the Optus customer base but later increased market share.

Probably incorrectly, many female executives will conclude that the political class likes to give female CEOs a hard time

When the Coalition was in power Prime Minister Scott Morrison took strips off the female chief executive of Australia Post, Christine Holgate for making a small gift to top performing executives that had been endorsed by her chairman and the board was fully aware of it.

She was probably the best female CEO in Australia at the time and is now challenging Australia Post in her new role as CEO of Toll Global Express.

Of course we now know that horrible mistake by Morrison was the first public signal that he was losing the plot.

But the Morrison problem was not revealed until it was discovered that he taken on joint ministerial posts without telling the relevant ministers including Treasurer Josh Frydenberg

However aspiring female CEOs will almost certainly link the Optus and Australian Post events.

In the case of Optus, irrespective of blame, two customer catastrophes meant that Singtel needed to appoint a new Optus CEO.

But the speed of the Bayer Rosmarin resignation was brought on by the Senate inquiry. Without that inquiry it could have been handled much more smoothly and with less damage.

I distinguish mistakes in a high-pressure, unexpected catastrophe like Optus from intense cross questioning of CEOs or chairs about basic strategic mistakes over long periods.

Qantas is an example of the latter. Qantas also happens to have a recently appointed a female CEO.