The Taking of Vocus - Chapter 8

The Taking of Vocus - Chapter 8

What really happened at Telstra - Personal Vendettas - Letter From Christine Holman

To date Vocus had made many acquisitions. Following the acquisitions of Amcom and M2, Vocus reorganised its board members to ensure representation from Amcom and M2. ?During ?the reorganisations of the Vocus Board, ?I was always asked by David Spence and James Spenceley to stay on as a director, in view of my contribution to the growth of Vocus and my work on the board and the various committees. I had worked tirelessly to achieve the best outcome for all stakeholders.

In the merger with M2, Vocus relied heavily on published financial information and on information provided by the directors of M2; Vaughan Bowen, Rhoda Phillippo, Mick Simmons, and Craig Farrow. The Chair of the M2 Audit Committee was Mick Simmons. ?Vocus inherited the M2 accounting policies, and I was left with the unenviable task of trying to unravel them.

The disastrous meeting around 31 May 2017, when David Spence, believing he had the support of Bob Mansfield, tried to make changes at Vocus with the appointment of a new CEO, created a huge amount of tension between David Spence and Geoff Horth.

On 8th June 2017, in what became a campaign of letter writing, a letter arrived from one of ?the Fund managers suggesting that David Spence and I resign from the Vocus board, effectively handing control of the board to the M2 directors. ?I found the suggestion that ?David Spence ?and I should hand control to M2 ?rather strange, ?as to quote John Ho in later correspondence, “there was a history of value destruction that M2 had created for Vocus” confirmed by the $1.5bn write-down in value of the M2 business a little over 2 months later.

I contacted every M2 director and asked who had communicated with this Fund Manager about the 31 May meeting, and all denied any communication.

At the AGM on 24 October 2017, when Bob Mansfield ?was officially appointed a Non-Executive Director, ?I was a little taken aback when Bob announced to the board that he had received a message of ‘congratulations on his appointment’ from the same Fund manager ‘and that no-one in the audience had raised his (Bob’s) ?involvement in Allco’. Bob, as always, was very eager to keep reminding everyone of how important he was.

Around 19 October 2017, when Rhoda Phillippo presented the huge energy contract, with limited information and an extremely unrealistic time frame to approve this material agreement, Christine Holman was very unhappy and raised a number of issues. ?Rhoda wanted Board approval almost immediately but how does ?a board approve something of that magnitude in that time frame?

Bob asked ?Rhoda Phillippo to take Christine through the contract , but that did not assuage Christine’s concerns.

There was no subcommittee put together by the new Lead independent Director, Bob Mansfield, to investigate the issues raised by Christine. Rhoda Phillippo was supposed to be a non-executive ?director and should not be giving presentations on any contract nor explanations. This is for the executives to do, something which escaped Bob.

Christine was too principled a person to stick around for too long, and so, a wonderful independent non-executive director resigned.

Bob was now wanting to put together a subcommittee to deal with the issues raised by John Ho. These were not new issues, and should have been dealt with after Bob was appointed and they were brought to his attention. Now John Ho was raising these same issues, ?Bob knew it would not be politically expedient to ignore him.

There was a flurry of phone calls between Bob Mansfield, Vaughan Bowen, ?Rhoda Phillippo, ?Julie Fahey ?and David Wiadrowski, with Bob leading the discussion. Of course I was excluded. I was not part of the M2 clique and I wasn’t mentioned in John’s letter. ?Bob was caught between a ‘rock and a hard place’. What was politically expedient for Bob, was in direct conflict to Bob’s loyalty to Vaughan.

On 3 March 2018, Bob Mansfield called me to say that Vaughan Bowen and Craig Farrow were going to resign and that he was going to be appointed Chair. John Ho had also asked for Rhoda to resign as she was firmly part of the ?M2 clique but Rhoda refused. This suited Bob as Rhoda was a very big and very vocal supporter of his.

During ?the conversation with me, Bob made it clear how upset he was that I had supposedly given ?John Ho information on Vocus. The only information Bob could be referring to were the issues John Ho had raised in his letter such as, how poorly the M2 business was performing, ?the obscurity of the M2 financial information and how M2 had not delivered any of the supposed profits at the time of the merger. In reality, John Ho had done his own due diligence and had spoken to Tony Grist and Christine Holman amongst others, and read the numerous articles about Vocus in the financial press.

?John Ho was a director and was entitled to understand everything at Vocus, ?the destruction of value that came from the M2 business and the part played by the various M2 directors and Geoff, ?in ensuring ?that the other Vocus directors were kept in the dark about the true state of affairs of M2.

Despite Bob’s very strong opposition to John Ho bringing one of his colleagues, Zy (Zhengyan) Chua board meetings, Zy came to all board meetings and it would not have taken Zy long to get to grips with the lack of information from M2 or where they were charging their expenses.

I had no desire for ?Vaughan Bowen to resign. I liked him, and always felt he was measured, charming and added a lot of value. Vaughan staunchly defended the other M2 directors and Geoff and ?if they left the board, this would not be an issue. I would have supported Vaughan to remain as Chair. In contrast to Rhoda, Vaughan never openly supported either the financial information coming from the M2 business or Geoff. I was desperate to restore the market faith in Vocus and I had worked tirelessly to try achieve this, something we could not achieve with any of the M2 guard. ?Vaughan was never mentioned.

But Bob knew if he didn’t make the changes, he would be forced off the Vocus Board ?and didn’t want the repetition of ?what happened at Telstra or Fairfax.

In reality, it was na?ve to believe that any director worth their salt would put up with anything that had gone on in the boardroom over the past year.

None of the issues were new to Bob. David Spence and I had been discussing ?them at length ??with Bob and I had personally tried to solicit David Wiadrowski to help make changes.?

Then in the conversation, ?Bob threatened me with personal retribution: He was going to make me pay for what had transpired with John Ho. The conversation so unnerved me that I prepared a transcript afterwards and sent this to Bob, John Ho and David Wiadrowski and also met with ?the wonderful Rebecca Stannage Maslen at ?Lawyers Herbert Smith Freehills. Bob had succeeded in getting Christine Holman to resign and I was next.

Here is a statement written to me and reproduced with Christine Holman’s kind permission:

?“Even though short lived, my time as a director at Vocus was an inflection point, tough experience, but an important lesson for a relatively new public company director.

I believe it to be a catalyst, knowing that my decision to step down, only three months into my tenure, may lead to a backlash, ridiculed that I wasn’t up to the challenges of being a NED, that my ability to influence was de minimis, that I was difficult, unrelenting in my questioning on business performance, capital allocations decisions, transactions/contracts, risk management and corporate governance.

As custodians of shareholder capital, I felt and continue to do so, that the Board has a responsibility to be rigorous and disciplined in managing/allocating capital.

?Unwilling to compromise on my integrity, despite enormous pressure to fall in line, and being reminded that my NED career could end as quickly as it had begun, I chose to hold myself to account, rather than worry or obsess about what others thought of me, or craving recognition from some of the most senior leaders in the telco sector.?

?Protecting my board position or future board positions was not an option.

Once I crossed the line of my integrity, where would I redraw that line??

?My mother used to say to us as kids?‘fear is a reaction, but courage is a decision’.

It holds true for me, every time I have had to stare into matters that test my integrity and trust me it happens more often than I would like.

?I stand by my decision to exit the Vocus Board and pleased that the company is navigating and charting its future under new ownership.

?I wish it the very best”.

?Regards

Christine

?

Two days later on 5 March, ?Vocus announced that Bob Mansfield ?would be appointed Chair and Vaughan believed it was now time for him to resign from the board. Craig Farrow elected to resign at the same time.

I abstained on the vote for Bob to be made Chair. I would have voted against, but John Ho persuaded me to abstain. There was no love lost between Bob and me. I was not one of his sycophants nor was I going to allow ?Bob to tell me which way I should vote on anything. We disagreed on a number of things including the definition of what constituted an Independent Lead Director and meaning of the word? “passionate”. M2 and Bob’s definition of “passionate” was the acceptable term to describe someone who loses ?their temper, but to me that was unacceptable behaviour at any level.

The ASX announcement read as follows:

Vocus Board changes – Appointment of Independent Non-executive Chairman

The board of Vocus Group Limited (ASX:VOC) today announces that the board has appointed its Deputy chairman and Lead Independent Director, Mr Bob Mansfield AO as chairman, with immediate effect.

Following last week’s announcement regarding the departure of Vocus Group CEO, Mr Geoff Horth, Mr Vaughan Bowen proposed that the Board’s key strategic priority of board member renewal and the search for a new CEO would be best served by the appointment of an Independent, Non-Executive Chairman, at this point. Mr Bowen also believes this to be the appropriate time for him to resign from the Board, to pave the way for further Board renewal, though the recruitment and appointment of new independent non-execute Directors.

Mr Craig Farrow, who had previously indicated an indicated an intention not to stand for re-election at the next Vocus Annual General Meeting has also elected to resign at the same time.

Mr Farrow and Mr Bowen began their M2-vocus journeys together, almost 19 years ago, and both leave the board confident in the foundations and opportunities that exist for a strong Vocus.

There was also a very interesting statement at the end of the announcement, Mr Mansfield was first elected as a director by shareholders at the last AGM, ?and therefore is ideally placed to hold the role of Independent Non-executive chairman of Vocus for the foreseeable future. ??

Foreseeable future?? ?I objected to this statement but Vaughan and Rhoda insisted on it being part of the announcement. I felt it was a message to John Ho not to tamper with Bob being Chair. ?

In retrospect, I should have resigned when Bob was appointed Chair. I was hoping Bob and I ?could work together for the good of Vocus. I wanted to see change at Vocus, understand the true results of the M2 business and see all issues addressed. ?Now on the brink of this being possible, I wanted to see? this happen.

At that time, I was unaware of?all the measures Bob would and could bring as retribution to anyone who dared cross him, deals he would make, and some of the other people, including David Wiadrowski, he would use to help him achieve his objectives.

None of this would stand up to behaviour that is now demanded by Environmental, Social and Governance Standards.

I was soon to learn how Bob would justify his behaviour to everyone – Board Renewal ?- even though the Board now comprised Bob Mansfield, John Ho, David Wiadrowski, Julie Fahey, Rhoda Phillippo and Jon Brett, so the only Vocus directors from the Merger were Rhoda and me. (2 out of 6 directors).

On 6th March, ?the Financial Review,? in an article by Chanticleer,? headlined

Vocus chairman Vaughan Bowen insists departure wasn't driven by investors

When Vocus chairman Vaughan Bowen told his leadership team that?he was stepping down as the chairman of junior telecommunications group Vocus on Tuesday, he joked he was looking forward to becoming one of those "pesky shareholders busting their balls".

No doubt Bowen and his team know exactly what that feels like, particularly after the last eight days, during which Vocus?removed chief executive Geoff Horth?and then handed Bowen's job to deputy chair Bob Mansfield, the former Telstra chairman.

To mangle a famous Oscar Wilde quote, to lose a chief executive may be regarded as misfortune, but to lose a chairman a week later looks like carelessness.

?But Bowen insists there is a logic here.?

?Having decided Horth should go to give the company some clear air, Bowen said he sat down with Mansfield and asked him if he was up for the chairman's job.

Mansfield was already in charge of finding Horth's replacement, and Bowen argued that it would be better if the new CEO didn't have a chairman with ties to the past. Mansfield agreed, and the board did too.

Clearly the shareholders of Vocus are keen for change after a horror 18 months in which the company's share price has fallen from a peak of $9.29 in mid 2016 to the current level of $2.38. The stock rose 5.5 per cent on Tuesday.?

The company has suffered through a terrible case of post-M&A blues after struggling to digest more than $5.8 billion of acquisitions and mergers in the past three years. The most notable of these was the $3.8 billion combination of Vocus and M2, which Bowen founded and Horth ran.

But Bowen insists that his departure was not a decision driven by upset investors, and says the company's shareholders are understanding of the work that needs to be done to turn the business around.

Still, more than a few market observers have noted that since January the Vocus board has included John Ho, the founder of Hong Kong based fund Janchor Partners. The change since then (the appointment of John ho) ?– and particularly the ending of the M2 era – has been extraordinary.

Bowen says he will have no problems handing over the reins and, despite his joke about being a pesky shareholder, he doesn't plan to be interfering with the recovery that Mansfield and the new chief executive will need to push ahead with.

But he remains a Vocus believer, pointing out he spent almost $250,000 on shares late last year. He described the company's assets and share price as undervalued.

That may be, but convincing the market to re-rate the business will take time.


On 21 March 2018, ??I met with Bob Mansfield at ?Chifley Tower. Bob said ‘that as I didn’t support his election as Chair, ?I should resign.’ ?I tried to discuss my various issues with ?Bob, ?including his role when he was Lead Independent ?Director. Bob lost his temper at that point, ?as if shouting at me would convince me I was wrong. ?Then Bob tried to convince me that this outburst was just him being ‘passionate’.

On 27th March, Vocus put out an ASX release that confirmed? there was a sales process with its New Zealand assets.? The New Zealand business was strong and included some of the Vocus assets including FX Networks which Vocus had acquired in 2014 for NZ115m. FX Networks had 4,200 km of high quality fibre network and data centres.

Barely a month later Vocus put out another announcement saying it had concluded the sales process for NZ as it was in the best interest of shareholders for Vocus to retain this business.

On 21 May 2018,? Kevin Russell was appointed Group Managing director and CEO and Mick Simmons returned to his position as Chief Executive – Enterprise and Wholesale.

It News on 21 May 2018 stated

Exec brought in to lead troubled telco.

Vocus has secured the services of long-time retail telecommunications executive Kevin Russell as its new CEO following?Geoff Horth’s exit?in February.

He comes into Vocus after most recently completing a stint as Telstra’s group executive of retail. Russell has also previously led Optus’ consumer business.

However, he is probably best known in Australia as the former CEO of Hutchison Telecommunications, presiding over the Orange One CDMA service and its rebranding as ‘Three’

On the same day,? CRN in an article headlined

Vocus names former Telstra consumer boss Kevin Russell as CEO

In the weeks following Kevin’s appointment, the son of a very close family friend of mine, working at Vocus at the time, contacted me. I had nothing to do with his appointment.

He was extremely bright and I was led to believe an up and coming star and on track to achieve his KPIs . He was unhappy with some of his discoveries and wanted to share them with me. I asked Kevin to have an “in confidence” chat with him as I believe that knowledge is power, and it was my responsibility to let Kevin decide what, if anything, he wanted to do with the information. This guy was fired a week later. To say I was devastated would be an understatement. I don’t think his firing had anything to do with his meeting with Kevin, rather to make way for a new employee. But I think the meeting did complicate his life and it should have been handled differently.

During the period leading up Rhoda Phillippo and my resignations on 9 July, John Ho used to call me often.? Most of the conversations centred around Bob’s desperation and obsession to get me to resign. John Ho had advised ?me from the beginning (and in most conversations) to try make amends with Bob and to work with Bob, which was something I was willing to do. But Bob needed to make good his threat of personal retribution. It had reached the point where ?I would not, and could not tolerate ?Bob’s behaviour and let Bob know this, so Bob started to use David Wiadrowski to try and achieve his objectives. David was so keen to ingratiate himself with Bob, that he eagerly complied.

Directors are appointed by shareholders for a fixed term - (Not by Bob, the Chair or other directors ). I suggested to Bob we call a shareholders’ meeting. I wanted the shareholders to know what had transpired in their company and how hard David Spence, ?I, and then Christine had fought to change things. ?I told Bob calling a shareholders meeting would not make him or me look good but I was happy to do so. Bob’s response was ?“that was very selfish of me”.

Towards the end of July, John Ho called me to apologise. ?This whole saga was consuming too much of his time with Bob and Bob was so fixated and obsessed by this, and I needed to do something about it, so I agreed to resign. At that time, Bob had agreed to appoint Matt Hanning to the board and Zy as John Ho’s alternative, both appointments Bob had vigorously opposed previously. ?From what I knew, Matt Hanning was very competent, so this would be a worthy trade. Both John Ho and Matt Hanning could be relied on to do the right thing at Vocus.

On 9th July Vocus announced that Rhoda Phillipo and I would resign effective from 22 August 2018.

It went on to say:

Mr Brett has been a long serving member of the Vocus Board. He founded the First Wine Fund in august 1998, and continued to serve as a non-executive director of the company after it acquired Vocus in 2010 and re-listed on the ASX as Vocus communications Limited. Both immediately and prior to and following the merger with the M2 Group, Mr Brett served as the Chair of the Audit Committee until July 2017 when he was succeeded in this role by David Wiadrowski.? He also served as a member of the risk and Remuneration committees during his tenure as a non executive director.

Mr Brett said, “it has been an incredible honour to be a member of the Vocus Board and to work with many talented board members, members of the management team and? wonderful employees.

Mrs Phillipo joined the Vocus board in February 2016 following the merger with M2 group, where she was appointed as a non-executive director in March 2015. Following the merger, Mrs Phillipo served as chair of the Risk committee, the wholesale energy risk management committee (A sub Committee of risk) and the Technology & Transformation Committee as well as serving as a member on the remuneration Committee.

“I’ve? thoroughly enjoyed the journey with M2 and Vocus, the business has a great future and the right leadership in place to take advantage of its unique market position, “Mrs Phillippo Said”.

On 26 July CRN again headlined

Vocus poaches Telstra channel chief Charlotte Schraa

Vocus has hired former Telstra channel chief Charlotte Schraa, after eight years with the telco and two years leading the indirect channel business, ?joining a growing list of executives jumping ship between the telecommunications rivals.

On 22nd August both Rhoda and I left the board. On the same day, Matt Hanning was appointed to the Board, and Zy was appointed as an alternate director to John Ho.

I felt very relieved and a little sad. I had worked tirelessly from the IPO, including the merger with M2. I knew the steps we had to take to fix the issues at M2 and had discussed this with most board members. I believed that Vocus needed? some knowledge of what had transpired immediately prior and post the merger with M2, ?but under the pretext of Board Renewal, there was a rush to get rid of anyone, with any knowledge of Vocus or ?the behaviour of certain board members. Whilst I am in total agreement with ?Board Renewal, there had been a lot of changes and knowledge is power; it makes it easier to fix something if one knows what has transpired.

Or maybe it doesn’t!?? Maybe it doesn’t make any difference. Maybe the pretence that all issues are new is the way to go. Board coherence is important but everyone having to agree all the time with everything, ?does not make good corporate governance.

On the same day, Vocus announced its results to the market to 30 June 2018.

Enterprise, government and wholesale showed earnings growth of 15%, and that over 2.5 Terra bits pers second capacity had been sold on the Australian Singapore cable.

In Bob’s addressed at the AGM he stated, “it became clear that we needed something different, at board and executive level, to properly execute on the opportunities in front of us. We all agreed at that point that we had to make significant changes from the top.” He goes on to say,. When he became chairman in March this year, his priority was to recruit a new CEO.”

It only became clear to Bob when John Ho was appointed to the board. By Bob’s own admission this should have been done much earlier. Once John Ho had decided change was needed, ?Bob really had no choice in the matter if he wanted the Chair role.

Barely 2 years later, on 27 October 2020 Bob Mansfield was admitted into the industry “hall of Fame” at the CommsDay Edison Awards for his achievement in the telecoms industry over the past three decades.

As far as I was aware, Bob had three major telecom roles, Optus, Telstra and Vocus. ??All big roles. ?The other roles which all ended in disaster, but somehow not for Bob, were Allco, Careers Australia, and Playup. And there was also the brief stint at Fairfax

To get a better insight into the Telecom roles, there was an interesting article published by the AFR on 14 August 1995 about Bob’s time at Optus

Bob left Optus a month or so after this article appeared.

Optus pauses to rethink strategy

The first two paragraphs are as follows:

The shareholders of Optus Communications and Optus Vision gathered for a board meeting in May to discuss the final budget for 1995-96. It was not business as usual. The issue of raising $3.1 billion to set up a new broadband cable network had topped the agenda of several meetings since Optus Vision was formed in January, and an agreed course of action was no closer.

Tensions came to a head when the board, which had been expecting a profit for the year to June 1995, was told that Optus would record a loss of $80-100 million. The prospect of forking out an additional $3 billion after a disappointing performance in the telephony business prompted several shareholders (led by the telecommunications giants Cable?&?Wireless and Bell South, and the AMP Society) to apply the brakes.

The events leading to Bob’s final days at Telstra were published by Sydney Morning Herald on? 16 April 2004

Chairman used his three strikes

https://www.smh.com.au/business/chairman-used-his-three-strikes-20040416-gdiqus.html

?Don't believe the guff about Bob Mansfield resigning because the board's bond of trust has been ruptured. He was fired.

Strike one: he backed management's mad scheme to control John Fairfax. Strike two: he took the idea to the Prime Minister before taking it to the board (and, amazingly, the PM ticked it, but that's another story). Strike three: when trying to hose the story down he was at best slippery and at worst he lied.

Conspiracy theories are always appealing, especially when they involve Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer, and no doubt there are plenty of plots and intrigues swirling around the Telstra boardroom, but Mansfield's departure looks more like a garden variety boardroom heave-ho.

Bob Mansfield lost the confidence of shareholders because of poor performance and misadventures; then he lost the confidence of the other directors under the old three strikes and you're out rule.

A fourth strike, if one were needed, may have been the woeful performance over the broadband internet pricing war that destroyed relations with big customers and the ACCC for little or no result. The debacle was not a middle-management accident - it went to the board and directors were told there may be a "speeding fine" from the ACCC. That advice was wrong and at the very least Mansfield failed to recognise the dangers.

Mansfield's portrayal of his departure as the result of board ructions that are not his doing and "the accountability factor is clearly on me as chairman and I accept that", is nonsense, and ranks with his unhappy interview on ABC Radio's?AM?after the leaking of the plan to merge with/take over Fairfax.

Here is a segment of the transcript of that interview, which is worth looking at again because of its significant part in his fall:

Q: So Telstra didn't investigate the idea of buying John Fairfax?

A: That was not discussed.

Q: Not at all?

A: No.

Q: Did anyone from Telstra run past the Government the idea of buying John Fairfax?

A: No.

In fact it?was?discussed and it?was?run past the Government by no less a person than Bob Mansfield. We know this because John Howard said so.

If this dissembling had come from a chairman who was popular with shareholders, he may have got away with it. But the reverse is true: Mansfield and chief executive Ziggy Switkowski are friendless and have been for at least a year.

An anecdote from John Sevior, fund manager at Perpetual Investments, shows why. During a meeting with Mansfield two years ago, Sevior highlighted the strategy and performance of British American Tobacco. Both BAT and Telstra had market shares of 70 per cent or more and EBIT margins of 30 per cent; BAT had long been dealing with the top-line revenue decline that Telstra was then facing.

Despite that, BAT had produced 20 per cent a year compound returns for shareholders over the preceding eight years [Sevior told Mansfield]. "It's all about how you deploy the cash," he said. "They just gave it back to shareholders."

Mansfield and Switkowski seemed to have mistaken shareholders' calls for growth as calls for Telstra, as a company, to grow. In fact they were calls for their own wealth to grow, which is an entirely different thing.

In misconceived pursuit of corporate growth they dropped several billion dollars in Hong Kong and then, instead of accountability and soul-searching, said, in effect: "Whoops! Sorry about that," and life at the top of Telstra barely missed a beat.

This was their HomeSide (NAB's loss-making US venture that eventually caught up with its chairman and chief executive). Will Hong Kong also catch up with Telstra's chief executive, as well as its chairman?

There is little doubt that Ziggy Switkowski is a sitting duck now, and that his enemies on the board and the more ambitious members of his team will be hatching plots.

In that context it was fascinating to see the comments of former CFO and now Retail chief David Moffatt when tracked down by a journalist on Wednesday night: "I wasn't involved in the board meeting, I've been head down, tail up working for the shareholders."

Unlike the other directors, is the implication - including, presumably, his boss, Ziggy Switkowski. Perhaps it would be drawing a long bow to see this shot as a job application, but then again . . .

There was another very interesting snippet in the flurry of statement and comment with Mansfield's "resignation".

In his own statement, the new acting chairman, John Ralph, said: "The board's nominations committee will be engaging a leading executive search firm to identify a person to become the new chairman."

Note: not someone to fill the vacancy on the board, but to become?chairman?.

Telstra's constitution provides as follows: "The directors must elect a director as chairman and may elect another director as deputy chairman and may determine the period during which each is to hold office."

Is there no one on the board whom they could elect chairman? If not, it is a shocking indictment of the board's and the government's failure to recruit good directors. If so, there is no need to rush around filling the board vacancy with a search.

On November 9 ?2018, ?Belong founder, Antony de Jong was appointed as the M2 boss Belong, was the budget telco division of Telstra

I had some interesting messages from a number of people about the great takeover by Telstra people, but hadn’t really appreciated the extent of it.

I have nothing but respect for Telstra, as long as you are not on hold with their call centre.

Telstra is a great business and has a lot of excellent people.



?



Other articles

14 August 1995 -AFR

Optus pauses to rethink strategy

2 Oct 1995 - The?AFR

Bob-job week as Optus scouts for direction;

11 Sept 1999- The AFR

?How did Mansfield get this job anyway

?April 15 2004 - Sydney Morning Herald

Mansfield goes in Telstra mutiny

16 April 2004 - The AGE

Sidelined again, ?after another mauling ?

16 April 2004 - Morning Herald

Chairman used his three strikes

29 March 2010 - Sydney Morning Herald

Allco hearings reveal failure at every level

4 March 2016- The AFR

Legal action may follow PlayUp founders and ex-directors

27 May 2017 - The Australian Newspaper

Failed training group Careers Australia sent $40m to owners

26 November 2022 - The Australian Newspaper

PlayUp, the Aussie company caught up in the FTX collapse and the $600m deal that never eventuated




Denise Hanlon

Boss Lady with Bills to Pay at HanlonHR I Ambassador of Awesome I Talent Enabler I Scale Up Expert I M&A I Conference MC I Karaoke singer I

1 年

An absolute thriller Jon Brett. I can feel a Netflix series coming on!

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