Telstra Appoints New CEO

SYDNEY, Australia - Solomon (Sol) Trujillo has been appointed to chief executive officer and executive director of the company.

Trujillo will take up his position on July 1, 2005. He will replace Dr. Ziggy Switkowski, who will step down on July 1, 2005.

Trujillo, aged 53, and his wife Corine, will be moving to Australia from California to take up the role.

The board expects that Trujillo will drive cultural and organizational change throughout Telstra, enabling the corporation to further embrace a service driven, customer focused way of doing business.

Trujillo has been appointed on an ongoing contract. He holds a Bachelor of Business and a MBA degree from the University of Wyoming. He was previously a non-executive director and then chief executive officer of Orange based in London, a mobile company in Europe, was the CEO of hi-tech company, Gravitron and spent 26 years with US West Inc., including serving as its chairman, CEO and president for five years.

Trujillo is currently sitting on the boards of Pepsi, Target, Gannett, (the newspaper chain) and EDS. He will leave all but one of these board positions.

Trujillo will receive a fixed remuneration package of $3 million per annum. He will also receive an annual short term incentive of up to the value of $3 million and an annual long term incentive of up to the value of $4 million. These incentive components are referable to performance milestones. He will receive an initial sign on payment of $1 million and 50 percent of his first year incentive on commencement.