Optus Boss Shock Quit

One of Optus’ top bosses, Maha Kirshnapillai, responsible for government and corporate affairs, has resigned unexpectedly citing family commitments. The sudden departure is to be effective by the end of the month.

Maha Kirshnapillai, (pictured right), director of government and corporate affairs and responsible for lobbying government on behalf of Optus regulatory affairs as well as representing its interest in the Telstra break-up agreement.

 “While Maha advises leaving Optus was a difficult choice to make, he has decided to leave Optus at the end of this month due to family commitments,” Optus government and corporate affairs general manager, Claire Gill, said today.

“Optus would like to thank Maha for his contribution to the company over the past three and a half years and wishes him all the best for his new endeavours.”

“He has been an outstanding advocate for competition in the telecommunications market not only in his leadership role at Optus but in his previous careers. He has represented Optus at a time of major industry reform and ensured that Optus’ position as a champion for competition and consumers is not lost in the complexity of the debate.”

The Singapore owned telco has been highly critical of its main rival Telstra controversal break-up proposal ahead of the NBN rollout, finalised earlier this year, insisting the proposed split won’t fix its current “monopoly” and “risks reinforcing Telstra’s dominance” for the future.

The Sing-Tel subsidiary Optus will be attending tomorrow’s Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) meeting to discussTelstra’s proposed split, whose sharehaodlers already gave the plan and the $11bn NBN deal the green light, last month.

Optus CEO Paul O’Sullivan hit out at the deal as late as yesterday telling the AFR it was “fatally flawed” and will allow Telstra “lock down” customers.

“It is fatally flawed in terms of not providing the same price and non-price access terms to everybody. It could potentially allow Telstra to have an advantage, it will allow Telstra to lock down customers before the NBN rolls into territories,” he said.

And other ISP’s including iiNet and Internode are far from pleased with the Telstra agreement either.