Seven’s CMO Mel Hopkins has shown her support for ex-boss Kelly Bayer Rosmarin.
Bayer Rosmarin resigned as CEO of Optus this week after overseeing two high-profile disasters within just 13 months.
In September 2022 nearly 10 million customers were disrupted by a data breach, and. more recently there was a nationwide outage that took the service out for 14 hours.
The nationwide press has not held back when it has come to blaming Bayer Rosmarin with The Australian saying her departure will “help Optus move forward” and many criticising her response to the network outage.
Still, not everyone has turned on Bayer Rosmarin. Seven’s CMO Mel Hopkins (who worked with Bayer Rosmarin whilst she was at Optus) has come out in support for the departing CEO, highlighting the positive impact Bayer Rosmarin had on her own career.
“I felt it important today given Kelly Bayer Rosmarin announced her departure from Optus to share this post,” Hopkins said on LinkedIn.
“I appreciate there has been a great deal of commentary over the last couple of weeks around Kelly’s leadership – but I feel that it is important to recognise my experience and time with Kelly at Optus and the profound impact she had on me on my career, as she moves to her next chapter”.
“I had strong ambitions, but KBR from the outset could see I had potential even beyond those ambitions. During our 2.5 years together Kelly pushed me to see that potential. She provided support and rigour, investment and coaching. She encouraged challenge and differing perspectives. She was always willing to spar with me,” Hopkins said.
“Kelly helped me kill my crippling imposter syndrome. She had amazing belief in my ambitions to change and shift the Optus brand to ‘It Starts with Yes’ and bringing aboard Chiefs like Daniel Ricciardo and Ash Barty. She demonstrated strength, intelligence, innovation and hunger.”
“She always took my calls, had her door open and made me feel in her presence in our one-to-one interactions that she was completely present and I was important,” Hopkins went on.
“She never wanted me to leave Optus, but appreciated I needed to further spread my wings and supported my move with amazing support”.
Moving forward, Hopkins offered words of hope to Bayer Rosmarin.
“Bumps in the road make for better and stronger leaders and I am excited to see the next chapter for KBR. Outside the noise … thank you. I am a better leader because of you and appreciate the world is my oyster”.
