Marla Oates

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Well, Tomas, today we're really in for a wealth of insights from down under with a CEO who led a massive transformation for a major telecom company.

He took over the reins as CEO during a really tumultuous and tough time for the company.

And he transformed this organization into a company that was much more streamlined and digitally enabled.

It's going to be a great discussion.

So for our listeners, our terrific guest today is Andy Penn, who was formerly the CEO and managing director of Telstra, Australia's largest telecommunications company.

Before his CEO role, Andy actually started as a CFO.

And before joining Telstra, he spent 23 years in leadership roles at AXA, one of the world's largest insurance and investment groups.

Currently, Andy is a non-executive director of the Coles Group, chair of Visit Victoria, and a senior advisor with McKinsey & Company.

You were group CFO at AXA and then you became group CEO of AXA Asia and you joined Telstra and then you were CFO, right?

And then you moved into that CEO role.

Was this a conscious decision?

And do you think that understanding the CFO and finance side of the house really helped you assess the opportunities and challenges more quickly?

Yeah.

20% of CFOs now step into the CEO seat.

What advice do you have for CFOs that are making that move into the CEO seat?

Let's talk about your CEO role at Telstra.

So you stepped into the role in 2015, pretty turbulent time for the company.

And shortly after taking the helm, you had to deal with a number of network outages, angry customers, analysts questioning the company's response, the strategy.