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When Telstra\u2019s boss Vicki Brady returns to work on Friday after cutting a holiday short to deal with a crisis at the telco, she will be facing a storm.<\/p>\n
The company Brady leads is under fire after a crippling outage, followed by a mass failure of Triple Zero calls on its network, prompting the government to demand answers.<\/p>\n
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Telstra CEO Vicki Brady has been absent, leaving her chief financial officer Michael Ackland to front press conferences.Monique Westermann<\/p>\n
It is shaping as one of the biggest tests yet for her leadership, which has ushered in major change at the telco giant, including deep cost-cutting and sustained price hikes.<\/p>\n
The woman who has run Telstra since 2022 will have to hope that her early training in finance, followed by a long career in the relatively anonymous executive ranks of telecommunications companies, will prepare her for the very different world of an angry public frustrated by yet another phone outage.<\/p>\n
Brady was set to land back in the country on Friday morning, after cutting short her family\u2019s overseas trip \u2013 the reason given for her silence since Telstra\u2019s time-travel style glitch<\/a> began blocking calls, internet connections, payments and trains early on Wednesday, and a secondary, related outage that continued into Thursday morning, by which point 639 calls to Triple Zero had failed.<\/p>\n Instead, Australia\u2019s 34th-highest-paid chief executive, who was on a take-home salary of $6.7 million in 2025, left it to her chief financial officer Michael Ackland \u2013 the former head of GE Healthcare and a seasoned veteran of corporate consulting \u2013 to be the only visible face of Telstra\u2019s public response.<\/p>\n On Thursday, his second day of fronting hostile press conferences, Ackland insisted Brady\u2019s Friday flight home was the fastest option available.<\/p>\n \u201cShe got on the first plane that she could get onto to get back,\u201d he said in Melbourne. \u201cShe came back immediately, changed her plans, and she\u2019ll be back here as soon as she possibly could.\u201d<\/p>\n Ackland said he and Telstra\u2019s leadership team had been in regular contact with Brady, but would not confirm if she would be ready to hold a press conference as early as Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cI would expect that she will want to get up to speed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Brady\u2019s vision for Telstra has been for a more efficient, leaner telco that built on the cornerstone of its reputation as Australia\u2019s most reliable carrier through a period in which rivals suffered crippling outages.<\/p>\n Since she took over as boss in September 2022, Telstra\u2019s value has increased from about $3.94 per share to more than $5.40 this year, though it has fallen in recent weeks to just under $5, taking the company\u2019s market capitalisation to more than $55 billion.<\/p>\n That growth has come thanks to a recent strategy of rounds of jobs cuts and outsourcing. In all, full-time employee headcount shrunk to 29,520 by the end of December 2026 from the peak of 33,761 it had grown to in mid-2024 following early acquisitions and initiatives in Brady\u2019s term. In February, Telstra proposed cutting a further 400 enterprise and consumer jobs, with many to be outsourced to India.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Brady has also fundamentally reshaped how Telstra charges its customers. Under her leadership, the telco abandoned its model of CPI-linked annual price reviews in favour of rolling, staggered increases.<\/p>\n Related Article Over the past two years, this strategy has pushed the cost of core postpaid plans up by $12 a month through successive hikes in August 2024, July 2025, and May 2026. Even budget-conscious users haven\u2019t been spared, with these price pressures trickling down to Telstra\u2019s subsidiaries, Belong and Boost Mobile.<\/p>\n Telstra\u2019s strong performance, built on tough decisions, has led colleagues to praise her work ethic.<\/p>\n \u201cShe is one of the most conscientious and self-effacing colleagues I have had in corporate work,\u201d one telecommunications veteran, who asked to remain anonymous, said. <\/p>\n Brady is at her core a numbers person, and colleagues describe her as frank, no-nonsense, and highly financially literate with a balanced perspective on risk.<\/p>\n Employees, however, have felt these traits markedly differently. \u201cOutsourcing work, slicing and dicing the corporate structure, and slashing local jobs when [Telstra] should be investing in its domestic workforce,\u201d is how Shane Murphy, Communications Workers Union national secretary, views her leadership.<\/p>\n Brady\u2019s route to the top job at Telstra ran through finance, then away from it, then back again. She grew up in Holbrook, in regional NSW, where she helped her father run one of the town\u2019s three pubs, helping to spark an early passion for business and hard work.<\/p>\n \u201cI pulled beers, I waitressed, I cleaned, I did the cash book, I did the banking. And I enjoyed most of it,\u201d she told The Australian Financial Review in 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat Dad really instilled in me was that if you\u2019re passionate about it, you work hard, then you can build a successful business.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople look at owning a pub and think, \u2018gee, that must be so much fun\u2019. And don\u2019t get me wrong, he enjoyed it, but he worked so hard. Early mornings, late nights. It was really 24\/7.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady studied a bachelor of commerce at the Australian National University in Canberra before a master of science in management at Stanford University\u2019s Graduate School of Business. She qualified as a chartered accountant \u2013 credentials that set her apart from the engineers and career operators who have often run Australian telcos.<\/p>\n Her early career took her through KPMG and then telecommunications, including nearly two decades at Optus and its Singaporean parent, SingTel, in Australia and overseas. She came up inside the challenger camp before crossing to the incumbent, and she has watched Optus\u2019 recent troubles from the vantage of a former insider.<\/p>\n![\"Telstra](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/f96513969dc4de6c9ba80ff2a0d395c88239bb22.jpeg\")
Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland at a press conference in Melbourne on Friday.Simon Schluter<\/p>\n![\"Telstra](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/91fd75535a41e4ce882ea9c66622cbf706a96c38.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Vicki](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/d5f5f26983c7dad625ca0a6a52f93642a590c260.jpeg\")
Vicki Brady before senators in an inquiry into Triple Zero services in December last year.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n
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