Telstra COO leaving - and he's not being replaced

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 22 January 2009 03:22

IT Industry - Strategy

Greg Winn will leave his job as Telstra's COO at the end of January to return home to the US. The COO role will lapse on his departure.

Even though Winn has been with Telstra significantly longer than the two years originally envisioned when he joined the company in August 2005, the announcement comes a month after Telstra was excluded from the National Broadband Network (NBN) selection process.

Since Winn was in charge of Telstra's networks and operations, and received much of the credit for the Next G and Next IP rollouts, there's bound to be speculation that he might have stayed on if Telstra had got the job of building the NBN.

Instead, he is returning to Phoenix to "pursue his personal interests." That sounds more positive than the "pursue other opportunities" so often rolled out when executives part company with their employers.

And Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo spoke very highly of Winn: "There is no finer telecommunications operational executive in the world than Greg Winn. Telstra and Australia have been fortunate to have benefited from Greg's skills, leadership and wisdom over the past three years," he said.

You might have thought Winn's shoes would be hard to fill, but Telstra is confident that the remaining members of the executive team will be able to shoulder the load and the COO position will remain vacant.

Most of Winn's direct reports will instead report to Trujillo.

Is that another sign that the timing of Winn's departure is linked to the NBN decision? It's not as if Winn would have done all the work himself, but it's evident that the network operation will be less busy over the next year or two than it would have been if Telstra had won the NBN tender.

Winn expressed confidence that the company's operations were in the hands of truly capable and experienced executives.

"I will return to the United States with pride and satisfaction at what we have achieved in the past three-and-a-half years," he said.