O'Sullivan and Dews: Leaders in exile

Renai LeMay
Thursday, 24 February 2011 03:53

IT People - People

opinion Four and a half years ago, on a beautiful August day in Sydney, I had what I had come to consider the regular pleasure of attending a keynote speech by Optus chief executive Paul O'Sullivan.

At the event '” a lunch held by business circuit stalwart the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce '” the Irish-born O'Sullivan was in fine form, cracking a series of jokes at the expense of then-Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo and his fast-growing cadre of imported 'amigos'. 'Another one of our sponsorships is Cirque Du Soleil '” an amazing troupe of artists and acrobats from Canada. They are currently touring Australia and come to Melbourne next year,' the Optus chief executive smiled.

'But of course there has also been plenty of media coverage about another group of North American performers '¦ So let me clarify that Optus is involved with Cirque du Soleil '” not with its rival troupe the cunningly named Cirque du SOL.'

At the time, it wasn't unusual for O'Sullivan to make Telstra quips in public. A regular on the speaking circuit, the Optus executive had become known for his sense of humour and his dashing challenges to Telstra. Such an approach is fitting for the leader of a company which has long seen itself as Australia's premiere challenger telco.

It was also an exciting time. Trujillo's national fibre to the node network proposal '” the ultimate precursor to the NBN '” was being debated, Australia was just starting to get a feel for the amazing potential of its nascent 3G networks, and a fresh feeling of industry change was in the air; with O'Sullivan and Optus right in the middle of it.

But fast forward a few years, and how O'Sullivan's image has changed.

Over the past 18 months the Optus chief '” once so familiar and comfortable with speaking in public and to the press '” has turned into a virtual recluse, shunning the public eye almost to a point and hiding out in the telco's expansive North Ryde campus like a modern day Phantom of the Opera, unable to bring his masked visage into the sunlit open air.