Telstra's dominance of the telco market will continue over the next four years despite losing CEO Sol Trujillo and its chance at the $10 billion National Broadband Network (NBN), company chiefs said Thursday.
Telstra chairman Donald McGauchie told reporters in Sydney its exclusion from the NBN will not jeopardise its market position.
“I think you guys have got to get over this obsession with [the NBN],” McGauchie said.
“It would be nice if this country got off the political kick and got on to the innovation investment concept and understand that there are a lot of ways to skin a cat.”
He said Telstra's 30Mbps Hybrid Fibre Coaxial network, Next G and new fibre backhaul links create a formidable national network.
He claimed the NBN will have no impact on Telstra's financial guidance and will present “major challenges for the operator” in terms of technology, logistics and legal challenges.
McGauchie said Trujillo's replacement, who will step in on June 30, will be “able to see around corners”, conceptualise and strategise the future, and execute it
Trujillo said the company is on track to meet its ambitious 2010 goals and is “as focused as [it] has been over the last four years”, in which he was CEO.
He said his successor will be sourced from internal and external candidates and will need to overcome the challenge of managing Telstra's legacy systems.
“The day I took my job is the day I started planning succession... getting as many great people developed inside the company,” Trujillo said.
He said he will not immediately look for another job.
“I will be focused until midnight June 30, but I also have some personal considerations and I have family, friends, parents, and to be quite frank I've got to lose about 8kgs too... ,” Trujillo said.
McGauchie said the strategic decision and implementation of the Telstra Next G network was Trujillo's greatest achievement.
Some analysts attending Telstra's financial results announcement Thursday raised concerns that the company will lose-out from its exclusion from the NBN.
Telstra posted a half year profit of $1.9 billion, down a percent compared to the corresponding period.