Telstra COO Kate McKenzie departs

Telstra announced Monday morning that its chief operations officer Kate McKenzie will retire after 12 years with the company.

McKenzie (pictured) had been chief operations officer since 2013, in a role that included overseeing the telco's field services as well as IT and network architecture and operations.

“It has been a wonderful 12 years with Telstra and I am very proud of all the people I have worked with and what we have achieved together," she said.

McKenzie will depart in "the coming weeks" with global enterprise and services group executive Brendon Riley immediately stepping up as interim chief operating officer. The head of Telstra's IT services arm, Network Applications and Services group managing director David Burns, will fill in for Riley.

Australia's largest telco had suffered a series of embarrassing outages to its fixed line and mobile networks this year. On 9 February, human error was blamed for knocking out mobile voice and data networks then on 17 March a second national mobile service outage hit Telstra's 4G, 3G and 2G networks. Each incident resulted in the telco offering a 'free data day' as compensation.

A third Telstra outage hit on 22 March, mainly affecting Victoria and Tasmania. The fourth major incident saw 75,000 NBN and ADSL customers suffer on 11 June. The latest outage brought down its fixed line services on 30 June, affecting big-name enterprise customers such as Jetstar, Sensis and ME Bank.

The telco had earmarked $50 million to improve monitoring and capacity after the first three incidents, plus another $250 million the day before the last incident.

"The time is right for me to change direction in my career. I leave knowing that Telstra, under [chief executive] Andy Penn’s leadership, has a great strategy for the future and wish the company, its people and its shareholders every success," she said.

McKenzie had led three business units during her 12-year stint, which started in 2004 as head of the regulatory group. She was quickly promoted to deputy group managing director for public policy and communications, and later ran the strategic marketing group as managing director. She also served as Telstra Wholesale group managing director.

The penultimate position she held from 2010 to 2013 before taking on the chief operating officer role was Telstra innovation, products and marketing group managing director. The telco said in a statement that this included "major product units including mobiles, fixed voice and broadband, network applications and services (NAS), data and IP, National Broadband Network team and chief technology office".

Penn recognised McKenzie for her contributions.

“Kate has been a positive force for Telstra, supporting four chief executive officers and working to build our technology and innovation capability. She has been a significant contributor to our customer-focused culture and a role model for women in the organisation. I have appreciated her support and counsel,” he said.

McKenzie remains as director of subscription television provider Foxtel and insurance giant Allianz Australia. She originally came to Telstra from a government executive background.