Two chief officers, including a board director, will depart embattled telco Optus amid the fallout from the company's failure to connect hundreds of calls for help.
Optus announced on Thursday chief financial officer and board director Michael Venter and chief information officer Mark Potter would leave the company in March.
The Singaporean-owned telco has recently come under scrutiny after bungling the handling of emergency calls to triple zero.
A firewall update caused an outage, which prevented more than 600 calls from connecting in South Australia, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and some parts of NSW in September.
Optus sent emails notifying the federal communications department about the outage to the wrong email address, leaving authorities in the dark for more than a day.
Three deaths have been linked to the outage.
The bungle even led visiting Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong to express his condolences to Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese.
Mr Albanese said the company "let down the nation" following the outage.
But Optus chief executive Stephen Rue said the announced departures came "following long-term and open discussions".
"Both Michael and Mark will remain with Optus until March 2026 to ensure a smooth transition during this period of substantial change," he said in a statement.
Mr Venter served as interim chief executive before Mr Rue took over in November 2024, following the departure of Kelly Bayer Rosmarin after an earlier network-wide outage in November 2023.
Separately, Optus, along with rival telco Telstra, alerted customers on Wednesday that dozens of older Samsung mobile phones would be blocked from accessing their networks due to potential issues with connecting to triple zero.
Aussie Broadband chief financial officer Andy Giles Knopp will take over from Mr Venter in April 2026, with Optus chair John Arthur highlighting his "strong track record in leading high-performing teams through periods of accelerated transformation".
New Zealand telco OneNZ chief information officer John McInerney's "expertise in digital transformation and operational resilience would be instrumental" when he stepped into the role at Optus, after stints at Telstra, HP and NBN Co, Mr Rue said.
Mr Rue deflected questions about his own potential resignation following the outage as pressure built on the telco from politicians branding the failure as "absolutely disgraceful" and "beyond belief".
"I am absolutely determined and focused to work through these processes that we're doing here and to implement recommendations," Mr Rue said in September.
