Solomon Trujillo

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A recent photo of Trujillo as the CEO of Telstra

Solomon Dennis "Sol" Trujillo (born November 17th, 1951 in Cheyenne, Wyoming) is an American businessman [1]. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Telstra, Australia's major telecommunications company.

1 History
2 Telstra career
3 Controversies
4 External links

[edit] History

He holds a Bachelor of Business degree and a MBA from the University of Wyoming. He began his business career as a business forecaster for Mountain Bell in 1975. He worked as President, chairman and CEO of U S West Communications, Inc. from 1995 to 2000. He served as chairman and CEO of Graviton before its closure. His next position was as CEO of Orange SA in 2003 [2], a company on which he had been a board member since 2001. [3]. He held that position until Orange was acquired by France Telecom. He was chosen as Telstra's CEO in June 2005. [4]

[edit] Telstra career

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The Howard government in Australia had planned to sell their remaining 51.8% share in Telstra in late 2005.^{[citation needed]} This plan was delayed until late 2006 because of the Trujillo-led drop in investor confidence and the consequent collapse of the share price.^{[citation needed]}

On 2 September 2005, one of Trujillo's executives caused an uproar by stating that he "wouldn't recommend Telstra shares to his mother".^{[citation needed]}
It was revealed in the following week that the government received a secret briefing from Telstra a month earlier, stating that Telstra had been drawing on capital reserves to pay dividends. This news prompted a plunge in Telstra's share price, wiping $1.5 billion off the market capitalisation.^{[citation needed]}
Trujillo has scrapped plans for Telstra to build Fiber to the node infrastructure, after abortive negotiations with Australian corporate regulators, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The major points of contention related to access to the infrastructure for Telstra's retail competitors (Telstra now operates infrastructure built by Telecom, who as the incumbent public telco, had a monopoly until the mid-1990s). Prime Minister John Howard had said that he would not be "blackmailed" by Mr Trujillo on the issue.

Services to the "bush" (rural areas) are to be maintained, Telstra must consult with the ACCC on every price change and Telstra operations will be split into retail and wholesale divisions.^{[citation needed]} Trujillo has vigorously fought all of these requirements. [5] Initially he stated that maintained services to the bush would be unsustainable, however, telecommunications minister Helen Coonan has shown no signs of backing down from the Universal Service Obligation for Telstra. Outspoken Queensland National Party Senator Barnaby Joyce was vocal in stating he would vote against the sale if services to the bush were not maintained.^{[citation needed]} In order to placate him, the government set up a $3 billion fund for rural services, and he obliged by stating that he would now vote for the sale, regardless that the CEO of the near-monopoly telecommunications body does not desire to serve the bush.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Controversies

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Trujillo is currently in the midst of fighting an increasingly bitter and personal fight with the government over regulations for Telstra. He has been accused by the Prime Minister of trying to blackmail the government.

Mr Trujillo is Australia's least admired chief executive, according to a of business analysts survey by the respected Australian business magazine Business Review Weekly. He has presided over a multi-billion dollar drop in the value of Telstra. Famously, he stated that he was 'proud' of having contributed to the decline in its value [6]

He resigned as CEO of U S West Communications, Inc. just before the company became the subject of a federal criminal probe for overstating nearly a billion dollars in profits. [7] He was not charged by the justice department and has denied any knowledge of accounting irregularities.

Mr Trujillo allegedly^{[citation needed]} ordered monitoring e-mails of Telstra's top 300 senior managers. At least one of them was subsequently fired for the "decision to bypass proper channels for expressing dissenting views was incompatible with his obligations as an employee". [8]

Mr Trujillo has received $1.5 million bonus for delivering a transformation plan for Telstra. He has hired management consultants Bain and spent $54 milllion on their services to do much of the work. [9]