A message from the CEO, Sol Trujillo

Dear Colleagues:

In late June of 2005, I called Dr. Phil at his home in Annapolis and asked him if he would consider dropping everything he was doing to join my new management team at Telstra. With about 10 days’ notice, he said “yes”. Both of us expected this to be a 1-2 month assignment to help out during the transition, but one month has turned into 37!

But now Phil and his wife, Mary Sue, have decided it is “time to go home”. As Phil said in a letter to his PP&C colleagues,

“…the realities of life are catching up. We both have aging parents, and we need to be on call when they need us. As some of you know, Mary Sue went back to Wisconsin two weeks ago to be with her mother for a surgery that was performed last week. We also have two kids who are passing through important decision points in their lives following business school and law school. As parents we want to be closer to the decisions they are making…All things considered, we have decided that the sum of the evidence is calling us home – despite our affection for Australia and feeling of pride to have participated in building the New Telstra.”

The past 37 months have been good months, and much has been achieved – not just in our corporate-wide, end-to-end transformation but by Public Policy & Communications (PP&C) – including:

1. deployment of ADSL2+ with the regulatory safeguards we required;
2. a green light from Government to shut-down the CDMA network to make way for the world-leading 21st century Next G™ mobile internet;
3. successful constituency lobbying to reverse the nearly $1.0 billion Government taxpayer give-away to Optus/OPEL;
4. first-ever regulatory rollback – including price deregulation of more than 4.1 million lines as a result of a new exchange-by-exchange strategy for challenging ACCC regulation;
5. expanded presence in NGOs, international trade associations and offshore media to raise the level of public awareness about the financial, technological and service delivery achievements of the New Telstra;
6. many innovations in our internal and external communications – including many corporate “firsts” in Australia, such as nowwearetalking.com and corporate blogs.

Under Phil’s leadership, PP&C also shared with Legal the highest rankings in the Employment Engagement Survey (EES) just completed – though he is the first to say that this achievement reflects the tremendous leadership of his senior team – Julia Foley, David Quilty, Michael Grealy, Tony Warren, Andrew Maiden, Andrew Butcher, Rosie Mullaly, Jane van Beelen, Tarnya Dunning, Catherine Payne, Warwick Ponder, and Chloe Munro.

Going forward, there is much to do. The big ones include:

• winning the right to build a National Broadband Network (NBN) in a way that works for our shareholders, and for people, business, and communities, no matter where they are located in Australia – including government at every level,
• making sure the market understands Telstra’s end-to-end transformation and what it means for consumers, business, shareholders, and Australia’s future,
• continuing resolve to achieve regulatory reform that is pro-consumer, pro-shareholder, pro-investment pro-innovation and pro-Australia, and
• remaining on the front foot in all that we do.

With these and other important challenges in communications, government affairs, and regulatory relations, I asked David Quilty – and he agreed – to accept appointment as the new Group Managing Director for PP&C. I have known David since he served as a senior advisor in government and I have been repeatedly impressed by his deep knowledge of telecommunications and his high performance in every assignment, including our international government relations activities.

Phil said in his note to PP&C staff that at far back as 2005, he “…came to admire David for his character, steady temperament, and a data-based, results-oriented approach to everything he does. These are qualities of habit and mind that each of us has observed since David joined Telstra as director of government relations in January 2006.” Those words also aptly express my view of and experience working with David.

David and I have had the opportunity to discuss our course for the transition and into the future. These have been productive and encouraging discussions. I am confident we will have a seamless transition as David formally takes the reins of PP&C on 1 September.

I also want to encourage you to welcome David to his new leadership responsibilities and to join all of us in completing the Telstra transformation and our journey towards an integrated, 21st century media-communications enterprise.

Sincerely,
Sol