LIFETIME OF ACHIEVEMENT
ANDREW PENN TITLE : FORMER CEO COMPANY : TELSTRA LOCATION : AUSTRALIA
Andrew Penn served as CEO for seven years of his 10 + year stint at Telstra .
Penn ’ s career has spanned more than 30 years , starting with a series of executive leadership roles at AXA Asia Pacific Holdings including Chief Executive Australia & New Zealand , Group Chief Financial Officer , Head of Transformation Programme , Chief Executive International until 2011 .
Prior to this the executive completed an MBA at Kingston University London in 1991 before taking on Advanced Management Programme , Business Administration and Management , General in 1998 at Harvard Business School .
Throughout his career , he has been acknowledged as a Male Champion of Change advocating for diversity in the workplace as Chair of the Australian Governments Industry Advisory Committee on Cyber Security and in the Arts , where Penn received the 2020 Creative Partnerships Australia ’ s Business Leadership Award for his exceptional contribution to Australia ’ s cultural life .
He is now a cyber security coordinator and leads a team tasked with making Australia a world leader in cyber defence for the Australian government ’ s Department of Home Affairs .
McKinsey & Co said Telstra ’ s CEO Penn reinvented the company ’ s product offerings , digital capabilities , overall structure , and performance . In conversation with Senior Partner Wesley Walden the pair discussed the challenges of transforming an organisation while maintaining an innovative spirit and employee engagement . The pair acknowledged his key role of reshaping the cost base at Telstra and , in 2018 , launching and delivering a bold transformation strategy , dubbed T22 .
With T22 a mass restructuring ensued , with physical infrastructure assets , embedded agile ways of working separated out , along with simplifying some of Telstra ’ s product offerings . By design , T22 planned to slash billions of dollars in costs – and more than 8,000 jobs with it .
“ Some of the toughest moments for me were in 2019 . We had announced T22 , we knew the strategy was sound , but Telstra is a complex beast and stakeholders wanted results and that put huge pressure ,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald .
“ I am pretty emotionally resilient . You have to make tough calls but you have to do them transparently , respectfully and be consistent , that ’ s the job ,” he said of the radical change of the 150-year-old company , with tough conversations had and executives let go .
On his departure , which he said was due to his wish to retire , Penn handed over the reins to then CFO Vicki Brady . At the time , Telstra Chairman John Mullen said that Penn would leave a positive and