Optus CEO’s telling response when she’s repeatedly asked if she plans to resign over cyber breach that hit up to 10 million Australians: ‘I am working hard to be the customer champion’
- Optus CEO sidesteps question on whether she offered her resignation after hack
- Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has been in the top job at Optus since April 2020
- Ross Greenwood quizzed her on her future but she only gave party lines
Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has given an extraordinary response when pushed on whether she will offer her resignation over the Optus data breach.
The CEO repeatedly sidestepped questions about her future during an interview on Sky News.
Instead, she insisted she had ‘stood up’ to take accountability and was ‘working hard’ to get to the bottom of the data breach which affected millions of customers.
Ms Bayer Rosmarin didn’t elaborate on how she had taken accountability.
‘I am entirely focused on doing right by our customers so I have stood up with my team to take accountability to get to the bottom as to how this could happen and are doing everything we possibly could do to prevent harm from coming to customers,’ Ms Bayer Rosmarin said in the interview.
Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin avoids questions on whether she has offered her resignation following the data breach last month
When asked once more if she had offered her resignation she again avoided giving a direct answer, instead giving a bizarre response about being the ‘customer champion’.
‘I am working hard on behalf of customers to be the customer champion and prevent harm from coming from this incident,’ she said.
‘That is all that I am focused on.
‘I am 100 per cent committed to sorting this out, doing what is right for customers and rebuilding trust and love for the brand of Optus.’
Ms Bayer Rosmarin was also asked how many customers Optus lost as a result of the hack, a question the CEO also directly avoided answering.
‘We have been talking to customers every day and many customers are sticking by us. There are some customers that have concerns and are leaving,’ she said.
‘I am concerned with every single customer that leaves Optus. Every customer loss concerns us.’
Some 9.8million Optus customers’ names, passports, drivers’ licence numbers, addresses, email addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers were stolen by hackers in Australia’s biggest ever data breach last month
The 45-year-old had a rapid rise to become the Optus boss, a role she claimed in April 2020.
Addressing the media after the breach Ms Bayer Rosmarin said, ‘I think it’s a mix of a lot of different emotions.. Obviously I am angry that there are people out there that want to do this to our customers, I’m disappointed we couldn’t have prevented it.’
Cyber-Security Minister Claire O’Neal recently called the breach of the nation’s second biggest telco ‘a basic hack’, although Optus denied this claiming the data was ‘encrypted’ and had ‘multiple firewalls’.
Some 9.8million Optus customers’ names, passports, drivers’ licence numbers, addresses, email addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers were stolen by hackers in Australia’s biggest ever data breach last month.