Optus Australia boss steps down

Optus’ local country chief and CEO of its consumer division Kevin Russell will leave the telco at the end of March, after just over two years in the role.

Kevin Russell

Russell joined Optus in 2012 initially as its chief operations officer after a 16-year career at Hutchison Whampoa, working across Australia and the UK. He served as Hutchison Australia’s CEO for five years until 2006, when he joined Hutchison Three UK.

He was appointed as the new CEO of Optus Consumer Australia in mid-2012 - a role formerly held by parent company SingTel’s current CEO of Group Consumer Paul O’Sullivan - as a result of an organisational restructure which saw the company split into three new business units.

Russell then took on much of the company’s day-to-day operations as Optus Consumer CEO, as well as its wholesale and satellite divisions, while O’Sullivan divided his time between Australia and the new regional role of head of SingTel Group Consumer.

Optus today said in a statement O’Sullivan would act in both of Russell’s roles while the telco looked for a permanent replacement.

O’Sullivan said Russell had informed him several months ago of his intention to depart the company.

“Kevin has worked with our management team to roll out a number of positive changes to Optus,” he said in a statement.

“I wish Kevin all success for the future and thank him for his significant contribution over the past two years.”

Optus declined to comment on Russell’s future moves, but he is expected to remain in Australia.

Optus also recently lost its head of broadband Martin Mercer to hosting provider and domain registrar Melbourne IT.

Mercer last month announced he would take up the role of Melbourne IT CEO in April, following the departure of long-running CEO Theo Hnarakis.