Optus has named co-boss of NBN Stephen Rue as its new CEO just 6 months after the telco was rocked by an outage impacting 10 million customers.
Rue, who has previously held positions at News Corp, will commence the Optus role in November. Former CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin left late last year following the outage.
Rue is currently CEO of Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) which he joined as CFO in 2014 before becoming CEO in 2018.
In his decade at NBN, he led the nation’s broadband rollout to completion, connecting over 8 million Australian homes and businesses with fast and secure broadband access. During the Covid crisis, he and his team ensured Australians could quickly and successfully switch to working from home leveraging the NBN.
Optus chairman Paul Sullivan said: “Stephen was chosen after a rigorous process that involved a slate of high-quality candidates. We’re extremely pleased to have someone of his calibre to lead the next chapter at Optus.”
“His experience in setting up the digital backbone of Australia will serve us well as we reinvigorate Optus as Australia’s leading challenger telecommunications brand. We expect Stephen’s operational and financial background to lift service standards significantly for the benefit of our customers.”
Commenting on his new role, Rue said: “My job will be to take care of Optus’ customers, people and business and to provide strong competition and choice,” he said. “I look forward to accelerating the transformation at Optus so fellow Australians continue to have the choice of a strong alternative telecoms provider and the country as a whole can harness the power of digital connectivity to drive economic participation and social inclusion.”
