Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has resigned as CEO of Optus following a series of major controversies under her leadership.
Ms Bayer Rosmarin was only appointed to the top position on April 1, 2020.
The announcement of her resignation was made on Monday, with Ms Bayer Rosmarin saying it was an “appropriate time to resign”.
“On Friday I had the opportunity to appear before the Senate to elaborate on the cause of the network outage and how Optus recovered and responded,” she said in a statement.
‘Having had time for some personal reflection, I have concluded that my resignation is in the best interests of Optus.
“It has been an honor and privilege to lead the Optus team and serve our customers. I wish everyone and the company every success in the future.’
Her resignation follows a national Optus blackout, which left 10 million customers without internet access and calling and texting for 12 hours.
In September 2022, Optus suffered a data breach that affected 9.7 million current and former customers – more than a third of the Australian population.
During this month’s blackout, Ms Bayer Rosmarin, 46, caused a PR disaster of her own when she went missing for seven hours as essential services and businesses struggled to cope.
While Ms. Bayer Rosmarin refused to take center stage and interact with irate customers, a fleet of vehicles brought in luxury items such as throws, shrubs and furniture for a photography session at her $15 million mansion.
Even the CEO’s husband, Rodney, admitted that the photo session – organized for the architect renovating the house – was “unfortunate timing.”
Mr Rosmarin told Ny Breaking Australia: ‘They hadn’t got around to photographing it yet and it was done today.
Ms Bayer Rosmarin was born and raised in South Africa, but moved to the US when she received a scholarship to the prestigious Stanford University.
She obtained a degree in industrial engineering and a master’s degree in management sciences, winning an award for being the best graduate.
After college, she moved to California to work in Silicon Valley at both established and startup software companies.
She subsequently worked as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and joined Commonwealth Bank in 2004, where she held several senior positions before being appointed to the bank’s board in December 2013.
She joined Optus as Deputy CEO on March 1, 2019 and became CEO exactly one year and one month later.