Two senior executives at Optus have announced they will be stepping down as the telco continues to face scrutiny after a serious triple-zero outage.
Chief financial officer (CFO) and Optus board director, Michael Venter will retire while chief information officer (CIO) Mark Potter will depart his role in March 2026.
The changes are part of planned leadership transitions, the company said.
Both men are expected to remain with Optus until March next year to ‘ensure a smooth transition during this period of substantial change’, CEO Stephen Rue said.
Andy Giles Knopp will be appointed CFO from April 2026 after working at Aussie Broadband, where he has served as CFO since early 2024.
John McInerney will join Optus in November this year as CIO to ensure a smooth transition with Mr Potter.
Optus has been facing major scrutiny over the last few weeks after more than 600 triple-zero calls from customers were prevented from connecting in South Australia, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and some parts of NSW in mid-September.
A firewall update caused the outage, which lasted more than 12 hours and has been linked to three deaths.
The telco sent emails notifying the federal communications department of the outage to the wrong email address, leaving authorities in the dark for more than a day.
Optus has commissioned an independent review into the incident and it is also under scrutiny from the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
More to come.
Two senior executives at Optus have announced they will be stepping down
