Hugh Bradlow to leave Telstra after 22 years

Telstra’s chief scientist Hugh Bradlow is set to retire from the role in October, ending a 22-year career at the telco.

Bradlow said briefly in a tweet that he was “looking forward to new opportunities and devoting more time to ATSE”, the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, where he was elected president last year.

A Telstra spokesperson lauded Bradlow’s contribution both to Telstra and the Australian telecommunications industry.

“Hugh’s role was fundamental to increasing our focus on the future of technology and instrumental in building depth in the company’s technology leadership by helping the next generation of technologists in Telstra get the benefit of his years of experience,” the spokesperson said.

“He is a technologist of the highest order and assisted Telstra to develop a view of long term technology and what that might mean for our customers.

“Hugh is a lifelong champion of technology and thought leader in the global telecommunications industry, qualities that he brought to his time with Telstra with much passion and dedication.”

Bradlow joined Telstra back in mid-1995 from the University of Wollongong, assuming leadership of the Telstra Research Laboratories (TRL).

He would maintain responsibility over TRL for the next decade until it was wound up in a restructure initiated by then-CEO Sol Trujillo. About 80 percent of TRL’s hundreds of researchers took redundancy.

But by then, Bradlow also had oversight of “technology strategy”, which led him to be appointed Telstra’s CTO in June 2000, a position he then held for over 14 years.

He would later pick up innovation responsibilities again in February 2011 before being named Telstra’s chief scientist in June 2014, which he will now relinquish as he calls time on his Telstra career.

iTnews understands there are no plans to appoint another chief scientist at Telstra.

In the role, Bradlow assumed roving responsibility for finding and understanding future directions of technology and identifying opportunities for Telstra to play a part. He was a regular speaker at conferences.

Responsibility for innovation will continue to fall under the chief technology officer’s remit, a role currently held by Hakan Eriksson.