LIFETIME OF ACHIEVEMENT

With executiveship not a role for the faint hearted , from the get-go Penn tackled his role with a hands-on approach , putting in immeasurable amounts of work to turn Telstra around .

Career history British-born Penn started – and spent the majority of – his career at AXA Asia Pacific Holdings , where he worked for 21 years from 1990 . Holding leadership roles including Chief Executive Australia & New Zealand , Group Chief Financial Officer , Head of Transformation Programme and Chief Executive International , when conclusion of the US $ 14.6 billion AXA deal came around in March 2011 – when the company was divided between AMP and the French AXA SA – the top dog was forced into a work break that would direct him toward his next career move .

Reflecting on his move to Telstra the following year , joining as Chief Financial Officer and Group Managing Director , Finance and Strategy , Penn told the Sydney Herald in 2022 , just as he ’ d left the company : “ I can ’ t honestly say that

I fully understood or appreciated what telecommunications was when I joined the company , and it was a steep learning curve , those first 18 months .”

And the early years of his chiefdom weren ’ t free of adjustments and putting out fires left right and centre either , as Penn did all in his power to make Telstra the dominant mobile operator despite a string of outages plastering the company ’ s name across the headlines – which were less than kind .

Defying odds But the 59-year-old emerged from the criticism , which posed a threat to his position , as analysts questioned the company ’ s strategy and their handling of a spree of network-wide issues .

He added : “ Those outages , wow . I thought : ‘ Where did that come from ?’ I had been on the job for less than nine months , but that didn ’ t matter because you were still accountable as the CEO . That was a real wake-up call .”

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