Transformation in Turbulent Times with Former Telstra CEO Andy Penn
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What are the key insights from Andy Penn's leadership journey?
Call them changemakers.
Call them rule breakers.
We call them redefiners.
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Redefiners. I'm Marla Oates, a leadership advisor at Russell Reynolds. I'm thrilled to be joined today by my fabulous co-host, Russell Reynolds Associates' one and only chief science officer, Tomas Chamorro-Promuzic.
Hey, Marla. It's great to be here. How are you?
I'm good. It's so nice to see you.
Thank you. Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Are you ready for your first Redefiners episode?
I prepared a lot. I have to say I've been a fan of the podcast for some time, so I'm a little nervous, but I'll do my best. And I know that you'll guide me through this and you're an experienced host, so I'll try my best to keep up with you.
You're going to do great. Well, look, before we get started, just a quick reminder to our listeners that you can find all episodes of Redefiners and Leadership Lounge on YouTube. If you're currently watching on YouTube, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode. And for our audio listeners, don't forget to rate Redefiners. We love to see your feedback. 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.
Yeah, there's a couple of things that really excite me about today's guest. The first is, of course, as you just said, that he's really managed to execute a large transformation project at scale, which, as we know, is something that many of our clients are struggling with. The second one is that he had a really unconventional, almost squiggly, unusual path to the C-suite first and then to becoming CEO.
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.
So Andy, welcome to Redefiners. Thank you very much. It's great to be here. There's several reasons why we're very excited to have you. But I think as a starting point, one of the main reasons that your profile was so interesting to us is that you kind of had a little bit of an unusual pathway or track to the C-suite first and then to becoming CEO. So should we start with that? And maybe you want to recap what that kind of relatively squiggly or unpredictable path was?
I dropped out of school when I was 15 in the UK or in London. And I can remember my first job in London was basically as a shipping clerk, which was a very junior administration person. But I remember it vividly because my starting salary at the time was £2,424 a month. a year. And the first problem I confronted was that my daily train ticket was 10 pounds a day, which if you do the math, you can work out was more than I was actually earning. So I had to get a second job to supplement my income to be able to do that. But I think the thing that I learned and it taught me was that ultimately you can't teach motivation. You can't teach people what to be passionate about. And for whatever reason, I wasn't motivated
during my schooling time. But then when I commenced work, albeit in a very, very junior role, I actually found motivation and I enjoyed it. And then as a consequence, I did take myself back to evening classes and weekends where I studied my final schooling and I did a first degree. Then I qualified as the accountant and I did a master's degree. And so I sort of did do all of that, but rather unconventionally.
Yeah.
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?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What are the key insights from Andy Penn's leadership journey?
0:00–6:07
2
How did Andy Penn lead Telstra through its transformation?
6:07–11:48
3
What lessons can CEOs learn from Telstra's digital transformation?
11:48–20:10
4
How does organizational culture impact transformation success?
20:10–26:18
5
What strategies can leaders use to build effective teams?
26:18–32:20
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from Redefiners
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