(Bloomberg) — Telstra Corp.’s Vicki Brady will take over as chief executive officer of the telecommunications giant, becoming one of Australia’s few female CEOs among the country’s largest companies.
Currently Telstra’s chief financial officer, Brady, 50, will take the helm on Sept. 1, the Melbourne-based company said Wednesday. She will replace Andrew Penn, who is retiring after more than seven years in the role. Brady joined Telstra in 2016 and has also been responsible for strategy since July 2019.
She joins only Macquarie Group Ltd.’s Shemara Wikramanayake as female leaders of a top 10 company in Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index.
Women make up just 9.5% of chairpersons, and 6.5% of CEOs across the index, the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors said this month.
“I am proud to be the first female CEO of Telstra,” Brady said on a call with reporters. “I have two daughters, so I hope it inspires them to stay resilient and chase their dreams. And hopefully that inspires other women and girls to do that as well.”
Penn departs after a sometimes volatile tenure, during which he sought to modernize and simplify the former phone monopoly to confront a new generation of digital rivals.
“Andy has led Telstra during a period of significant change and will be known for his courage in setting a bold ambition,” Chairman John Mullen said in the statement. He’ll leave a “positive and enduring legacy.”
Telstra shares dropped 0.3% to A$3.92 at 11:53 a.m. in Sydney, valuing the company at A$46 billion ($35 billion). The stock has handed investors a total return, including reinvested dividends, of 9.3% during Penn’s tenure, trailing the benchmark index’s 88% total return, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Telstra has lost out to smaller rivals after its high-margin, fixed-line access business migrated to a state-run network, and mobile-phone competitors lured customers away with cheaper offerings.
Read more: Telstra Plans to Cut 8,000 Jobs in Make-or-Break Overhaul
Brady’s priorities are likely to be the company’s mobile-phone division, which is Australia’s largest, said Daniel Mueller, a fund manager at Vertium Asset Management in Sydney. “The future of Telstra is getting that right,” he said.
As CEO, she’ll also be handed oversight of a new standalone business housing Telstra’s infrastructure — part of a broad reorganization kicked off by Penn — that was designed to give investors a clearer view of value at company.
“In terms of challenges as I step into the CEO role, it’s clearly a role with large scope and scale,” Brady said. “And I do feel incredibly fortunate — being in the role I’ve been in for almost three years now as CFO — one of the things is that I get to see quite closely a lot of the time what Andy has had to deal with.”
Brady will be paid a fixed annual salary of A$2.39 million. She can also earn as much as 300% of her salary in bonuses if she meets certain performance targets, Telstra said.
(Adds comment from new CEO in 5th paragraph, fund manager in 9th.)
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