Telstra’s new CEO – Vicki Brady | ASX CEO Connect Series

Bryce: [00:00:53] Welcome to another episode of Equity Mates, a podcast that covers our journey of investing, whether you're an absolute beginner or approaching Warren Buffett status. Our aim is to help break down your barriers from beginning to dividend. My name is Bryce, and as always, I'm joined by my equity buddy Ren. How are you going? 

Alec: [00:01:09] I'm very good. Bryce. I am excited for this episode. It's a real privilege. We have to be able to speak to some of Australia's top executives, and this one holds a special place in your heart. Because when you were a young man living in Wagga, your first job was related to this company and now you get to speak to one of their top executives. you've come full circle. 

Bryce: [00:01:33] That's it. We are really excited to welcome to the studio. Vicki Brady, who is the Chief Financial Officer and Group Executive Strategy and finance at Telstra. Vicki, welcome. 

Vicki Brady: [00:01:43] Thank you so much and it's great to be with you. Bryce we share a connection. So I grew up just near Wagga in the little town of Holbrook. 

Bryce: [00:01:52] Oh, nice. With the submarine

Vicki Brady: [00:01:55] Inland submarine, that's the one 

Bryce: [00:01:57] and a great bakery. I must add. So, this episode of Equity Mates is in partnership with the ASX CEO Connect, which brings together listed companies and retail investors. It's hosted virtually by the ASX every second month and is a great opportunity for you to hear from CEOs and leaders of some of the most popular companies on the ASX. From the comfort of your own home and for free, so go to CEO Connect page on the ASX website to find out more and register your interest, and we're partnering with them to bring some of the conversations to the Equity Mates community. Vicki has over a decade of experience working in Australia's telecommunications industry across the two major players in the space. Telstra and Optus. So Ren, let's kick it off now. 

Alec: [00:02:42] Vicki, we always like to start these interviews by having the company leader describe their company in their own words, and we tossed up whether we needed to do that for Telstra because everyone knows Telstra. A lot of people are customers, maybe even shareholders of Telstra, but we figured we should always start there. So to kick us off today. What is Telstra? 

Vicki Brady: [00:03:04] do you know? I think it's a good place to start and I would always start with our purpose. So our focus is all about building a connected future that everyone can thrive. Now that sounds might sound a little bit corporate, but I've just come out of a couple of days with two hundred and fifty leaders across Telstra. And one of the big topics was why? Why do we work for Telstra? And I can tell you, it is quite amazing how people inside Telstra are really driven and motivated by what we do, and that keeping Australia connected probably hasn't been more important than over the last couple of years. So absolutely what we're all about is making sure people can connect. And, you know, whether it was working from home, studying from home, just shopping and getting essential items, keeping in touch with loved ones, watching Netflix. I think the last few years have just reinforced Town Hall, and that is plus coming out of this period or in the midst of recovering from floods, you realise just how important that connectivity is to Australians. And so I think for me, when I talk about Telstra and certainly why I chose to join Telstra and am so excited to be part of the leadership team, it is really that purpose and keeping people connected in some it's pretty exciting and never been more important.

Alec: [00:04:31] Well, Vicki, speaking of keeping people connected, I just went and visited my sister in Broken Hill with my family. Some of them weren't on Telstra and they were very much not connected. But my sister and I were connected the whole time, so I can say that Telstra kept me very connected when I was in Broken Hill. 

Vicki Brady: [00:04:50] I was quite pleased to hear that. And actually, you know what? Having grown up in regional Australia, just like Bryce did for me, it really, I feel so proud of that because it is. You go to so many parts of regional Australia and Telstra is there. We've invested with supporting communities. We've been there for decades and we will continue to be. So that's really exciting feedback. Thank you. 

Bryce: [00:05:13] We are all pretty familiar with Telstra. So this interview, we want to focus on what Telstra sort of hopes to become, and we feel like the right place to start is the 2.25 strategy that was delivered to investors late last year. Can you tell us about the new 02:25 strategy? 

Vicki Brady: [00:05:31] I absolutely can. I might know just just everyone's benefit. Maybe just give a little bit of context about the last four years because it's really important to understand where we're now headed. So we announced Twenty Five, which is our strategy that takes us at twenty twenty five. So very creative. Nineteen. And announced that in September last year and right back in June 2018, we announced the current strategy we're just finishing executing on. So we've got just three more months to go and it was twenty two, so you can pick up that was to twenty twenty two. You can pick up our naming convention for our strategy. And really, I want to talk about acts. The foundations that have been created through the last four years of delivering on that are so important for where Telstra's headed out to twenty twenty five. So just to put in context, when we announced today twenty two in June 2018, it was a pretty turbulent time for Telstra. We were in the midst of the NBN migration and fortunately we're nearly through that now. But that takes about three and a half billion dollars for caring a bit out of our business as we transition customers across to the ambience. So obviously, the government made the decision to re nationalise that infrastructure in Australia. And so as you can imagine that that actually just to put in context, was about a third of our aid dah and an impact level. Bottom line, it was about half wow. So that's a really, really big change for any company to go through. And so in June 18, we said, okay, that size disruption to our business is enormous. So our response needs to be equivalent. We need to fundamentally transform the foundations of Telstra to set us up to be able to deliver for customers to compete and operate in a whole different context. And so just to put in context, that strategy had four key pillars. The first one was radically simplifying the business for our customers to make it easier and to digitise how we really engage and make the experience simpler and better. And so just as an example, I was running consumer and small business when we announced a twenty two, and for the first year of it, we went from 8500 plans for our customers down to twenty. Well, I can tell you and I announce that there are a lot of people in the financial community that rolled their eyes and said, that's never going to happen. Great aspiration. So we've done that. So we've absolutely implemented just 20 market plans and we've now got the large, large majority of our customers on those plans. And that's a really big change for a telco. So we don't have a back anymore. So if you're with Telstra, you've got the in-market plan. Any changes we make to our plans and pricing customers used to talk about a loyalty tax. The longer I'm with you as a telco, you know, I get a worse deal. Well, that's not the way it works with us anymore. And in fact, nine point four million of our services now are on those plans. So that was a really big change. We also set up InfraCo as a standalone business unit. That's a really important one when I come to take twenty five. We also radically change the way we work internally, so we adopted Agile. We now have more than seventeen thousand people working in agile, and as part of that, we really fundamentally changed our structure. We took out of the organisation about three to four layers of management, and in fact, the fourth pillar was all about we needed to get really cost efficient. So as we made the experience better for customers, it also actually took our cost out of our business. So by the end of this financial year, we're on track to needs a little over a third of our fixed cost base. I take out two point seven billion dollars of recurring costs on an annual basis. So. And underpinning that, we have built a new digital stack. We've also continued to extend our leadership on the networking side and find Jason. Great example of that now. The reason I wanted to keep that context. So T20 too, was a real strategy of necessity. We had to really plumb the organisation and change its foundations, and it's pretty exciting to be three months from the end and we're well on track now. We put very bold, transparent ambitions in market and actually we will be. We'll complete more than 80 per cent of those things, which we're really bold. As I said, many people didn't believe we would meet many of them. And it's exciting to be here. So that means to twenty five if Te 22 was all about necessity. Twenty five is now pretty exciting because our starting point is so different and so this strategy had to take it. Twenty twenty five. Really all about now leveraging those foundations. How do we keep growing now, the core of the business? But importantly, how do we diversify where that growth comes from? And so it is an exciting time. So let me I might just give you a couple of beats on tape 25, because I'm sure we'll get into it in more detail, like two twenty two, it's it's built around some real fundamental pillars that are critical to the strategy. So firstly, it starts with the customer. So delivering exceptional customer experiences under twenty five is absolutely our ambition. We've we've done some great work, radically simplifying and really improving things, but we absolutely want to be a market leader on customer experience. And so that's at the core of the strategy. Second part of it is, you know, being a leader in network and technology solutions is right at the heart to Telstra is and that absolutely continues to be the case. And it's twenty five and there is so much going on in the technology space at the moment. So pretty exciting period ahead. And we very much intend to continue being that leader, not just in Australia, but actually globally. And if you look at 5G, yes, we're absolutely the leader here in Australia. We've got more than twice the coverage of our nearest competitor right now, but we're in the top few telcos globally in terms of where we're at on 5G, so we want to take that lead. The said bit, which is an exciting one if you happen to be a shareholder of Telstra, is to create really sustained growth and value for our shareholders. This is we've made commitments around growing, underlying and better growing underlying apps for our customer, for our shareholders. And that is really exciting because we've got strong cash flow, which is all about making sure we can maximise our fully franked dividend and seeking to grow it over time whilst we also invest the grace and generate more returns for our shareholders. And in the fourth part, to be able to do that, we have to absolutely attract the best talent to join Telstra. And so it is all about the place people want to work. So making sure people are excited and want to be part of Telstra, and that's that's got a few components to it, definitely our ways of working the agile ways and continuing to drive that that is critical and particularly today, now in this new world of hybrid and flexible working. We've been at the forefront of that and we absolutely intend to stay there. The other things that are important, they are digital leadership and our skills and capabilities and doing business responsibly. I started with purpose and I think purpose is just so important for our team members. So that's a little bit of a taste of what's to come, and I'm sure we'll dig further into it. 

Alec: [00:13:56] Yeah, I love that. I love the the grounding of 22 in necessity and then 25 is all about, I guess, opportunity. And when we had a look at aged 25 in preparing for this interview, we summed it up as sort of three pillars new technology, new markets and new verticals and would love to sort of go through each of those one by one. And you mentioned 5G, and when we talk about new technology, we have to start with 5G because we've heard so much about it for the past few years. There's a lot of hype, there's a lot of excitement. And Telstra's got pretty big targets, big ambitions, aiming for 95 per cent of the population to be covered by 5G. But if 25 and 80 percent of traffic on 5G by that time as well. So if you're on Telstra in 2025, you're likely going to be on a 5G network. So can you talk to us about 5G? And importantly, is it going to live up to all the hype that we're hearing about it? 

Vicki Brady: [00:14:59] Great question. And we do love a bit of hype in our industry. There's no doubt about it, but I do genuinely believe 5G is absolutely a game changer, and I say that for a couple of reasons. Or actually, there's quite a few reasons, but let me just deal it down. It definitely means more speed. It means more capacity, and it absolutely means more connected devices. So it is truly a game changer. Now I'm sitting in the chair as the CFO, and so there's one thing I did want to start with and a lot of people ignore because everyone wants to jump to the side and use cases, which I will come to because they are. It is something that I know everyone wants to talk about, and I get pretty excited about that too. But before I get to that, one thing I did want to highlight is 5G. And as I think in. Out 5G in terms of what's its business price for Telstra, because obviously we invest a lot of money in rolling out new technology, so you've got to start with like, what's that going to deliver for customers and what's it going to deliver for our business? What sort of returns? And you want to marry those things up tightly together? So 5G is really important for us because data consumption no surprise. I'm pretty sure everyone listening uses their mobile phone now a whole lot more than I did 10 years ago. And the sorts of things they do on it now demands a lot more data. So our data on our mobile network is growing at anywhere between 25 and 40 per cent every year. And in writing about 5G is it's way more efficient than 4G. So every generation of technology gets more sophisticated, it gets more efficient at delivering data. And so for us to be able to meet all those needs of people who are streaming things or they're doing video calls or all sorts of exciting things over their devices. 5G is so important to enable that because it does give us the speed, the capacity and the ability to connect more devices. So for us to be able to afford to deliver all of that in a really efficient way to our customers, it's it's really important. So definitely number one, the business case stacks up for 5G. Now getting to the more exciting bit that I'm sure everyone is interested in, then use cases and I'd say I have actually you a be kind of I've been in the industry more than two decades, quite a few generations of technology. And it's really interesting because we often in hindsight looked back at a generation ago. And yeah, 4G was all about enabling mobile video and mass social media use. When we launched 4G, we didn't know that to be honest, we launched it. We knew it had all of these amazing capabilities. And actually then the use cases, people start to realise what it's capable of and you see the innovation happening all around the ecosystems. So so as we stand here today, you know, we're in the thick of rolling out 5G now and then use cases are evolving. And I'm sure if you speak to him in five years time, we'll see him and go, Oh yes, 5G was all about X, Y and Z. And so but there are some things we're already saying. There's no doubt Internet of Things is really important that connecting devices in a whole new way. We're certainly seeing in the consumer world a real change. I think, you know, anyone who's interested in gaming and being connected, you know, your experience on 5G is fundamentally different. It just has a whole different environment, particularly in terms of something called latency, which is so important how quickly it responds. You know, this is wireless technology that a couple of decades ago, engineers would have said it wasn't possible. So it is it is different. It will allow a whole different environment, particularly in terms of applied. And, you know, downloads always been important, but now upload becomes very important. People out in the field, working journalists, for example, wanting to upload 4K or 8K video, you can now do that over 5G. You know, in the medical world, doctors being able to work remotely and look at high resolution scans and images. 5G enables that. And so there is so much to come on 5G, where only at the very early stages of it. And I just I think that's the bit we're excited about how we collaborate, how we work, how we bring our technology closer to customers. And there's a lot of talk about edge compute. So putting 5G connectivity and edge compute together, you then rolling things like AI, AR and VR and you can just there are an endless amount of possibilities about how this can make a difference in so many industries across Australia, and that that's that's exciting for 5G, I think. 

Bryce: [00:20:26] Yeah, it is a really interesting time. A technology that we have a close eye on here and in our community does is the metaverse. So glad you mentioned A.I. and are there as well because thinking about what that could look like in five years time and what I think and how Telstra plays a role in bringing that to life is pretty amazing. But let's move to new markets. So many, many people may not be familiar with the fact that. Telstra has an international business, is a leading telco in the South Pacific and a key part of the T20 five strategy is to actually expand into new markets, strengthen your Asia-Pacific leadership and expand reach of your global infrastructure. So what is Telstra's international business look like by 2025? 

Vicki Brady: [00:21:14] Yeah, look, and it is an interesting one, actually. It's amazing. I talk to a lot of people and a lot of people don't realise actually the size of our international business. It's a bit of a little hidden gem inside Telstra. I'll give you a little bit about what the business is today, and I can give you the context of where we're headed with it. So our international business. We've actually been operating it now more than 70 years. Wow, which is quite extraordinary. We operate across 31 countries around the world. We've got about 1500 people in our international business located all around the world. And a big part of it is access to submarine cable systems. And so we have access to about 26 six submarine cable systems here in Asia Pacific. We own fully owns francaises and in fact, we carry around one third of all of the interim regional traffic here in Asia on our submarine network. So it's a really big business. It delivers. Last year, it's only been revenue of about one and a half billion dollars and almost three hundred and forty million in that door. So it is a sizeable business all on its own right and the customers in that business. We have wholesale customers and we have enterprise customers. So excuse me, being internally in Telstra, inside Telstra Enterprise, so it is a big business to business, part of our business. And so what are the ambitions for Telstra International so fiercely? Well, I'm Telstra. It very focussed on really leading from a customer experience point of view, so it's put a very bold ambition out there. It wants to get to a strategic Mbps of more than 60, so right at the top end as a leader and it has great relationships today in its business, but it is very boldly going after and proving that further, in terms of the financial side of the business, we're targeting to see better margins sort of. In the early 20s, their early 20 per cent A does a very strong return and we're aiming to keep growing this business sort of around that low to mid single digit Kaga, either to stay at 10, 20, 25 and absolutely being really a partner of choice. And again, you know, in the current geopolitical environment, we have a pretty special place given ownership of submarine cable networks, access to it and obviously being a very trusted partner around the world. The other piece, citing in part in the international business last year we did announce that Telstra would be acquiring Digital Pacific, so a new acquisition which may just be in the process of finalising and completing, but that is exciting. Space brings us into a new realm, so us partnering with the Australian government, as I said, are looking to finish and complete the acquisition of Digital Pacific. And it's the leading provider actually of communications across Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Nauru, Vanuatu and Fiji. And it holds that a number one or number two position in those markets. So major mobile provider and fixed provider in those markets. So this is a whole new new area for us in the international business. So being on the ground in those markets, delivering for customers, so the international business has lots of things on its agenda at 20 twenty. 

Alec: [00:25:04] It's a fascinating part of the business. We think of Telstra and we think of it being very Australian, but you sort of think about this whole Asia Pacific region, the growth that we expect to see, the growth of a middle class in the Asia Pacific. And you know, if Telstra can position itself there, it's pretty exciting. But look, we will move to the third pillar, which is new verticals. And you know, Telstra, we think of it as a telco. And when we were reading through the strategy, the ambitions are definitely broader than that. And two that stood out for us were Telstra Health and Telstra Energy. And, you know, telehealth has got a bit of a bit of buzz during the the pandemic. Obviously, we've had to do a lot more things online and then Telstra. For energy, Telstra wants to be a top five energy retailer by 2025, so no small ambition there. Can you talk us through those two verticals? Why do you think they're, I guess, aligned with Telstra's core competencies and and what those businesses could look like in the next few years?

Vicki Brady: [00:26:08] Yeah, absolutely. And they're both exciting, I've got to say. So Telstra helping start there? It's already today. And again, there are so many parts of Telstra that you realise not everyone is aware of. But so Telstra Health already is Australia's leading health software and technology provider, and it actually has a glowing, growing global footprint as well. Try saying that fast. And so Health's actually the Telstra health business is one we've been in quite a number of years already, more than eight years, I think, in health. But what has been exciting to see over the last few years has been really how the Telstra health team have really got in and what parts of what is a pretty fragmented technology ecosystem around the health environment. And to your point, you know, through Covid, I think the health environment was forced to face seem to really create changes in technology. And so our leader of Telstra Health, Mary Foley, often talks about feels like it was a quantum leap, you know, in terms of adoption of technology. And so Telstra Health was in a great position because just to give you a sense of the sorts of things it does, it provides software and technology solutions that include electronic medical records, clinical and administrative software inside hospitals in primary care. You know, if you ever go and get an a prescription at a pharmacy, it is Telstra Health providing that technology that allows that to happen, and it's a key provider into the aged and disability care sector. So it cuts across a whole bunch of areas in the health ecosystem and is helping bring that ability to connect those various places that have been fairly standalone over a long time. We've also made a couple of significant acquisitions last year for the health business. The first one is a company called medical director, and it's a key provider of their practise management software that she pays use and pays us such a key part in that healthy ecosystem. And so this was a missing piece of the puzzle for Telstra Health. And so it's a really strategic acquisition for us, and it will really enable us to help sort of supercharge that digitisation in the healthcare system and ecosystem. And so that's been an important acquisition. And so as we look at 2020 five absolutely health again, we like big ambitions and we like making them public and really getting behind, delivering them. So Telstra Health absolutely is to realise the connected and improved digital health experience for all. So I don't know about you, but I'm pretty happy about that whenever you have to engage with the health system. I think making it easier and more connected would be a great thing because most people are going through enough stress when they're engaged in the health system. Taking one beat away and being able to connect those pieces together, I think is so important and such a great thing for Telstra Health to be able to help enable from a financial point of view in terms of Telstra Health in the first half of this current financial year. They delivered about $100 million in revenue, and we're predicting that that will grow in the high teens in terms of revenue growth this year. So it's already a high growth business. We've added a couple of acquisitions and so our twenty twenty five aspiration is to get it to be a half billion dollar revenue business. So that starts to get it to a pretty significant size inside Telstra. So that's exciting. 

Bryce: [00:30:18] Well, Vicki, no doubt that there's some pretty big ambitions in that five strategy, but it's exciting to think you know what Telstra will look like and what our world will look like and well, when we do make it to the end of that. Twenty five. So we're going to take a very quick break and then on the other side, come back and have a chat about your thoughts on leadership and culture. So let's just hear from our sponsors. So, Vicki, when we speak to our executives, we love digging deep on how you think about management and culture because as investors, it's really important for us to be able to understand the management of the companies that we're investing in. So do you have a leadership philosophy? 

Vicki Brady: [00:31:01] Yeah. Well, it's a deep question.

Alec: [00:31:03] It is. 

Vicki Brady: [00:31:05] So I think if I had to distil it down in terms of my leadership philosophy, I truly believe when you put big ambitions out there, you bring teams around that. And so I'm a big believer in diverse teams. There's no doubt you need lots of different thoughts around the table to get the best possible outcomes, and I truly believe in today's world. Collaboration is more important than ever. So building that really trusted environment where people can work together, they can challenge each other that can debate things. But when the calls made, you get behind it and you really get on with making it happen. So for me, that's really important in how I lead. And so I love nothing better than making sure you've got the right team around that table. And I truly believe most people underestimate what they're capable of. Again, when you bring people around stuff and you put it began dishing out there in April focussed on how do we achieve it rather than all the reasons why it's going to be difficult. I think it's a game changer. And so for me, that's that's really critical in how I try and show up as a leader. And I think it's evident in the way Telstra has operated over the last few years. You can feel it in the organisation that excitement, that motivation. At times, it's slightly terrifying when you put the ambitions out there that saw and to get behind it and know you can trust your colleagues around you and you're truly going to be better together. That, for me, really drives me. 

Alec: [00:32:44] Yeah, yeah. I love that idea of putting out big ambitions and then turning to the team and saying, you know, we got to figure out how to get there, like, you're being really ambitious with the with the vision. You mentioned part of the vision for 25 is being a real digital first business and being a real digital leader in Australia. And we talk about a war for talent. We talk about the great resignation was saying Bryce in Iowa, lamenting before we got on Mike today that we couldn't find someone for a role we're trying to hire for. I can only imagine what that's like at a company like Telstra, especially when you're trying to hire digital skills that put you in competition with Google, with Microsoft, with whatever crypto start up is hot at the moment. How is Telstra approaching that challenge and how is Telstra going to attract and then retain the best digital talent?

Vicki Brady: [00:33:35] I think pretty much every company is now recruiting and looking for those skills and capabilities and talent that you spoke about. You know, every company I speak to is going through digitisation of their business. So software engineers, they like hot property in the market. So for us, what's been really important and actually it's been great to see quite a shift in how we're perceived in the market employment market. You know, it's not that long ago we would have been people would have said off Telstra, it's the old telco. I think through a lot of the stuff we've done on 20 to the fact we haven't just talked about digitisation and building a brand new digital stack inside our business and pushing into a whole lot of new exciting areas. People are actually saying that and it's getting talked about more. So we're in a very different position. That doesn't make it easy because, as you said, it's hugely competitive at the moment to attract great talent. But we're definitely saying we've become much more of a brand name in the market where people with those skills and capabilities are looking at. And so we sort of approach it from a few few angles. Firstly, obviously, there'll be talent we want to attract directly to work with us, and it's really important how we show up and and the excitement of the work we're doing. And I think the purpose I spoke about makes a big difference because people do talk about the great resignation. But I know there's also an alternate view that it's the great realignment. And in fact, what is driving people having come out of committees, I want to be working somewhere where I feel like I'm part of something bigger, that it's making a difference. And so for us at Telstra, as I talked about, connectivity is so critical to enabling so much today, and it's it's been evident through this period. So we're certainly seeing people attracted to being part of that. We know we won't always be able to attract all the talent ourselves, so we do partner with others to make sure we. Get access to greater talent and their capabilities and give you a great example, we announced recently a joint venture with Quantum where we are looking at bringing our data are our understanding, our customer relationships together with their incredible capabilities in data science and analytics. So. So there's a myriad of ways. And then along with obviously continuing to invest in the development of our teams, making sure they've got exciting work and they're working in an environment that really empowers and enables them to be able to retain them. So that's what we're focussed on. 

Bryce: [00:36:18] So, Vicki, since 2015, the Telstra share price has suffered a little down, sort of 40 percent. So for those shareholders listening, how much time do you spend worrying about the share price and how do you address the concerns from long term shareholders and employees? 

Vicki Brady: [00:36:37] Yeah. Look, I know a lot of people, obviously as a listed company focussed on the share price. And as I said earlier, you know, when you go back to 2015, that was really pretty NBN's major impact on our business. So, you know, that's taken, as I talked about earlier, about a third of our EBITDA out of the business and about 50 percent of the bottom line, it's the business side. So we obviously just had a very big impact on Telstra. And that's why T-20 too was so important. And if I if I actually look when we announced twenty two in mid-2018, if you look from there to now, actually our share price is up about 50 per cent since June 18. So absolutely, NBN's had a big impact with the government's decision to national laws that we had to respond. We have and so we've certainly seen, you know, a very big difference in that trend since June 18. Now, I would say, obviously so much goes into why share prices move, and we're seeing that at the moment in the markets, it's a pretty volatile time. So certainly what I focus on as a leadership team, but we're very focussed on is what is in our control. And obviously that's our strategy that is executing on it and delivering against what we commit to to get those outcomes to customers, teams, the communities and obviously ultimately those financial outcomes as well. So I focus a lot on long term shareholder value. It is critical because for us to have, you know, the confidence and the right to keep investing, to deliver all those great things to customers and communities, we've got to be delivering the right financial returns. So that's how I think about it. 

Alec: [00:38:26] Yeah, we love that we got the chance to speak to you today, and we like to close these conversations by talking about future plans. And we generally start by asking what the pipeline looks like for the next 12 months. But I feel like we've covered a lot of that with twenty five. So is that I guess? Is there anything else outside of what we've discussed that we should expect or is it going to be heads down working on this twenty five strategy? That's what we should expect. 

Vicki Brady: [00:38:56] Absolutely. And I wouldn't call out where in the midst of completing our legal restructure of Telstra as well, and that's an important one. As we look forward. We didn't talk a lot about InfraCo today, but part of 222 and they need to take twenty five years was standing up for call as a standalone business unit, and that's an important one. Last year we did monetise forty nine per cent of our towers business at a twenty eight times EBIT multiples, so it unlocked a lot of value for shareholders. And so getting a new legal structure in place, which creates the holding company, it means we'll have a name for chicest subsidiary Tower's subsidiary international business and then all of the rest of Telstra. Telstra Ltd So that's another key key piece as we look forward.

Alec: [00:39:47] Love that love the 28 times EBITDA multiple as well. You've got to be happy with that. I guess if you think about Telstra, if you think about the twenty five plan and the big ambitions that you guys have. What's the greatest risk for Telstra and their ambitions right now? 

Vicki Brady: [00:40:05] Yeah. Look, that is such a good question. And there's so many things you can talk about because certainly sitting in the role, sitting a CFO, you're obviously part of my job is to be thinking about risks. But I definitely think I sort of step back and say for Telstra and actually globally at the moment, I think one of the biggest risks is obviously climate change. And we're finally saying, I think a very different engagement in climate change around the world, which is great. And certainly for us as Telstra, it's something we've really leant into and again set some really bold ambitions because. We believe for Telstra's business, but importantly for the world and the world we live in, it's so important to be on the front foot in terms of what we're doing around climate change. Obviously, we've got to put big ambitions ahead of us and we set those big ambitions because I think there's a risk you don't want to sit back and react to it. You want to get on the front foot and say, How do we be proactive here? So on climate change, by 2025, we've got a goal to enable renewable energy equivalent to the amount we consume, and we are a big consumer of energy in our business. I think our energy load is the equivalent of about 300 thousands of families energy in a year. So we're a big we do use a lot of energy running a network and rolling out new technology like 5G does take power. And so we've got that commitment to enable renewable energy equivalent to what we consume by 2025 and then by 2030. Our goal is to reduce our absolute emissions by 50 percent. And so I think climate change is one of those risks must be on the list. I would expect every executive around the world at the moment. And so for us, getting on the front foot when it comes to these sorts of risks, being proactive, taking real action is how we're approaching it. [00:42:09][124.8]

Alec: [00:42:10] Yeah, and we should give credit where credit's due. Vicki I Before doing Equity Mates full times, I worked for Coles in their corporate sustainability team and we would look at Telstra as a good example. Telstra was the first Australian corporate to sign a power purchase agreement. I believe first, but if not first, right up there in 2017. A little while ago, we'll listen to Andy Penn, the Telstra CEO, on an earnings call. And, you know, climate was front of mind on that call as well. So I think it's great to hear that that's the risk that you guys are focussed on and to see some of the things you're doing. But Vicki, the final question we like to ask, you know, we like to be long term thinkers here from all the experts we've spoken to. Long term investing is the way to build wealth. So when we have a company executive on the podcast, we like to finish with a really long term focussed question. So if you think about Telstra in ten years beyond twenty five, maybe beyond twenty eight and into T thirty one or whatever it is, what does success look like for you?

Vicki Brady: [00:43:20] Yeah. Well, that's such a great question. And it's amazing how much changes in a decade, I think and in our industry, it's always going through change. But the thing that I'm excited about and I think about in that future, even as you look at the government policy, the digital economy is so important to Australia's recovery out of climate, and there's some really big ambitions around that. And at the heart of that is infrastructure, telecommunications infrastructure. So as I look sort of a decade out, I think Telstra will be even more important in helping enable that digitisation of Australia. And I think where we're at at the moment, the sorts of skills capabilities work we're doing, it is the connectivity layer, but it is also helping bring together that technology ecosystem to really enable things. And I think the health Telstra held is a great example of that. So I I'm super excited about the future of what we can do. We touched on sustainability and it's on the agenda for all of our customers, from consumer through to enterprise and government. And I think the role we can play with our technology and solutions to help enable a more sustainable future here in the country also excites me. And I think Telstra will be in the thick of that, and I'm pretty excited about what the next decade holds for Telstra. It is a new era out from under the sort of transition, and the NBN ad is navigating that and into a period of growth and being able to really help enable a really exciting future here in Australia. 

Bryce: [00:45:02] It is incredibly exciting to think about the next decade. But Vicki, we thank you so much for your time. There's there's great value in bringing, I think, the executives of publicly listed companies closer to our to our audience and retail investors as we get some insight into how you thinking about the business and future plans. So thank you so much and our audience would have taken a lot of value for that. And we really appreciate your time. 

Vicki Brady: [00:45:27] Thank you. Thanks for having me. It was great chatting. 

Bryce: [00:45:29] And if you have enjoyed today's interview, the ASX CEO can day off his conversations like these and more. So head to the CEO Connect page on the ASX website. Then next webinar is Tuesday, 12th of April, and Link will be in the show notes. Live sessions are available online if you are unable to attend. Again, information in the show notes on how to access those recordings, but Ren could chat was picked up next week. Sounds good.