Felicity Ross joined Australia’s second-largest telco in December in an executive-level role initially carved out by ex-CEO, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, over 15 months ago to woo Danielle Keighery, one-time Crown Resorts chief brand and corporate affairs officer and former Virgin Australia experience, corporate affairs and marketing chief, to its ranks.

But by February last year, both Keighery and Bayer Rosmarin were no longer saying yes to Optus – Keighery in favour of taking up the corporate affairs and communications mantle at Qantas, and Bayer Rosmarin following widespread criticism of her handling of the national Optus outages in 2023.

New recruit Ross is no stranger to Optus’ newly installed CEO, having worked with Rue previously at NBN Co, where she was corporate affairs chief. Her new remit is to deliver the brand, reputation and marketing strategy for both consumer and business segments. It also encompasses government and regulatory affairs, along with internal and external communications and stakeholder engagement. 

An Optus spokesperson said Ross’ newly created role on the Optus Executive Committee was about recognising the value of driving greater focus on our customer and stakeholder relationships.   

“Felicity has a strong background in brand, reputation, telecommunications policy and regulation, and during more than six years at NBN has developed outstanding relationships with key stakeholders across government, media and industry,” the spokesperson stated.

Prior to NBN Co, Ross was director of advocacy for Jobs for NSW within the NSW Department of Industry for two years. Her resume is an extensive list of communications and corporate affairs work, both in Australia and the UK, including with The UK Metropolitan Police and UK Home Office, Serco and BT Financial. She's also a non-executive director on the board of ex-services organisation, Wandering Warriors.

Mi3 can confirm Optus head of consumer marketing, Cam Luby, senior director of marketing for business and enterprise, Alexandra Sloane, and senior director of media, operations and performance, Lauren Dawber, all now report into Ross. 

The role appears to shut down the speculation circulating throughout 2024 that Optus would appoint a dedicated c-suite level marketing chief, following the departure of Mel Hopkins to Seven to become its CMO. Hopkins was then made redundant from Seven last June, one of between 100-150 staff redundancies, and is currently consulting to businesses and brands. (Seven CEO Jeff Howard told Mi3 last week the broadcaster has no current plans to hire another CMO.)

Ross’ appointment comes a month after Rue officially took up the reins as Optus CEO, after 10 years at NBN Australia, initially as CFO. Rue’s resume also includes 17 years with News Corp, where he was its chief financial officer between 2003 – 2013.

The original Optus plan

Under the original Optus configuration of late 2023, Keighery was to become MD of marketing and corporate affairs under a newly restructured function reporting directly to Bayer Rosmarin. At the time, Mi3 noted dual marketing and corporate affairs roles are rare in blue chip companies – Commonwealth Bank's Monique Macleod and Nestle's Anneliese Douglass are others with similar remits.

The role was an indirect replacement for MD of consumer marketing and revenue, Matt Williams, and saw a reshuffling of functional remit including a newly integrated product business unit, dubbed Customer Solutions, led by Williams. It was apparently short-lived, with Williams departing Optus five months ago after a five-and-a-half-year total tenure with the telco.

“It’s been an incredible few years with some big events, great progress in the business, and filled with amazing people. The business is tracking positively with strong momentum as shared in our quarterly results, and now feels like the right time to make a change as the business prepares for the next phase,” Williams stated in a LinkedIn post in September last year. Optus declined to comment further to Mi3 on his departure at the time.

Yet two weeks before she was due to join Optus, and following the exit of Bayer Rosmarin in December 2023, Keighery switched horses and confirmed she was joining Qantas as chief of communications and corporate affairs.

Changes rung

The ambition to raise corporate affairs to executive-level followed 18 tumultuous months at Optus, including the highly publicised data breach of 2022, which saw the personal data of 9.8 million Australian customers stolen and exposed online. It was also off the back of two national network outages, one of which lasted about 14 hours and saw thousands of Australians unable to dial emergency services. Optus subsequently copped a $12m fine for the emergency call breaches regulation following an ACMA investigation.

The situation has since resulted in a shake-up of Australia’s telco rules under the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Amendment in October 2024, coinciding with the shutdown of Australia’s 3G network. This requires telcos to identify mobile phones unable to access 000, notify customers when they cannot access emergency call services, coordinate with other carriers on communications where emergency service disruption is present, and not supply carriage services to mobile phones identified as being unable to access the emergency call service.