Senior Optus executive Lambo Kanagaratnam follows Kelly’s lead out the door

Optus has lost another senior executive, just four months after the national outage, with networks managing director Lambo Kanagaratnam departing.

Optus’ managing director of networks Lambo Kanagaratnam, who fronted a heated senate inquiry into the telco’s national outage last year, has resigned from the company in the latest exodus from the company.

The almost 10-year Optus veteran faced tough questions in the highly publicised inquiry last November alongside former chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin after the national outage took some 10 million people offline.

Mr Kanagaratnam’s departure was announced Friday afternoon by interim boss Michael Venter, the company’s finance chief who stepped into the chief executive role following Ms Bayer Rosmarin’s November exit.

The nation’s second largest telco now has two executives filling two roles, as it is yet to nail down a CEO replacement for Ms Bayer Rosmarin and Optus Group chief technology officer Jorge Fernandes is filling Mr Kanagaratnam’s role.

Under finance boss Mr Venter, the telco has already seen a raft of changes, including the axing of its smart home installation business.

The O-Team was a reflection of an Optus under Ms Bayer Rosmarin, who had been behind a major push for the company to move into the smart home market.

Ms Bayer Rosmarin wanted the telco to own a significant chunk of the $5bn market, but after just a couple of years of trying to gain a share, Mr Venter shattered the dream entirely.

The Australian was first to report almost 200 staff last week were axed after it was announced the business venture, called the O-Team, would be wound down by March.

The O-Team had made several acquisitions of smaller smart home installation businesses prior to being wound up.

Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin and Optus networks managing director Lambo Kanagaratnam appear before Senate inquiry following the November 8 outage. Picture: Martin Ollman

Mr Kanagaratnam, who had overseen Optus’s networks, arrived at the telco in 2015 after several years with South African multinational telecommunications company MTN group.

In his time at Optus he helped lead the company through “uniquely challenging major natural disasters” as well as “responding to the complexities that Covid and the recent outage presented for our customers and Network teams,” according to Mr Venter’s letter to staff.

“During his time with us, Lambo has led his teams through major changes in the Australian Telecommunications landscape and several milestone achievements for Optus,” the letter read.

“Personally, I have the highest regard for Lambo as someone who consistently demonstrates the characteristics that we all know him for. He is calm under pressure, approachable, cares deeply about our people and our business and is always professional.”

Mr Kanagaratnam had made a major impact on Optus and ultimately improved the way its network functioned, Mr Venter said. “He cares deeply about our customers and his team.

“Under his leadership, our Networks teams have materially improved our customers’ overall network experience and have also become more customer-centric in the way we measure network experience.”

Optus has not publicly said why Mr Kanagaratnam has left the business, however, it is understood he is pursuing a career outside of telecommunications.

Jorge Fernandes will fly to Australia from Singapore later this week to step into Mr Kanagaratnam’s old role.

Mr Fernandes joined Singtel in June last year, after having held the role of chief technology officer at Canadian telco Rogers Communications and at Vodafone UK.

Originally published as Senior Optus executive Lambo Kanagaratnam follows Kelly’s lead out the door