#225 Andrew Penn: The Untold Story of Telstra’s CEO — High School Dropout, Art, Scorecards and Calm Leadership

Episode #225 of The High Flyers Podcast features Andrew Penn, Recent CEO of Telstra (2015–2022) and Group CEO of AXA Asia Pacific. Today, he chairs Visit Victoria, sits on the Coles board, and advises Government on cybersecurity and national security.

In this conversation, Andy reflects on dropping out of high school and working two jobs before studying nights and weekends to complete his MBA, moving to Australia with AXA and learning empathy through global cultures, leading Telstra’s $30B transformation and 5G rollout, and building calm leadership under public scrutiny while balancing family life. He shares crucible moments, lessons from Kafka, his rituals for performance reviews and carrying bad news, and life today with art, painting, Spanish lessons and a home in Mexico.

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CLICK HERE to read show notes from this conversation. Please enjoy!

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The High Flyers Podcast is described as a "meticulously researched biography" that uncovers the untold stories of remarkable people and companies -- redefining the "high flyer". Launched in 2020, we have ranked in the global top ten podcasts for past two years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200 episodes released. Excerpts of the podcast have been featured in Forbes, AFR, Daily Telegraph, and showcased at SXSW.

200+ guests have joined host, Vidit Agarwal on the show from 15+ countries, including The CEO's of multi-billion dollar companies like Telstra, Bunnings, Australia Post, Woolworths, Airwallex, Eucalyptus, Tennis Australia etc; Board Members at Macquarie Bank, ANZ, Reserve Bank etc; Former Prime Minister of Australia; Globally renowned Tech CEO's from Google, Microsoft, Xero etc, Successful Venture Capital and Family Office Investors; CIO's at the world's biggest superannuation funds; Leading Entertainers; Olympic Gold Medal Winning Athletes and interesting minds you wouldn't have heard of that are changing the world. 

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