Who is Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin and who is her husband Rodney? Inside the lavish lives of the embattled power couple as they bounce from one PR disaster to another

Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has been the Optus CEO since April 1, 2020, but most people only hear her name when the company gets caught up in a public relations disaster. 

Unfortunately for her, there have been two of them in little over a year.

In September 2022, Optus suffered a data breach affecting 9.7 million current and former customers – more than a third of Australia’s population.

And on Wednesday the Optus network crashed, cutting off phone calls, texts and internet access for 10million customers and affecting hospitals, banks and trains which use their network. 

Ms Bayer Rosmarin, 46, then created a PR disaster of her own when she went missing in action for seven hours as essential services and businesses struggled to cope. 

But while the Singapore-owned telco she’s running has lumbered from crisis to crisis, she remains adamant she can stay in the top job.

Here’s everything you need to know about the high-flying female executive.  

Kelly Bayer Rosmarin (pictured) has been the Optus CEO since April 1, 2020, but most people only hear her name when the company gets caught up in a public relations disaster

Who is Kelly Bayer Rosmarin?

Ms Bayer Rosmarin was born and raised in South Africa, but moved to the US when she got a scholarship at the prestigious Stanford University.

She got a degree in industrial engineering and a master’s degree in management science, winning an award for being the top graduate.

After university, she moved to California to work in Silicon Valley with both established and startup software companies.

She then worked as a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, and joined the Commonwealth Bank in 2004, where she held several senior roles before being appointed to the bank’s executive in December 2013.

She joined Optus as deputy CEO on March 1, 2019 and exactly one year and one month later became its chief executive.

Who is her husband?

Ms Bayer Rosmarin is married to former Commonwealth Bank executive Rodney Rosmarin.

The high-powered couple have two daughters and life in a $15million mansion in the exclusive eastern Sydney suburb of Vaucluse, along with their family dog, an Italian greyhound named Vespa. 

Her family moved into the mansion in May 2021 after selling a smaller, more modern home nearby for $7.75million. 

They also sold their second home, a sprawling 1915 Rose Manor in Bowral in the NSW Southern Highlands for $4million in August last year after a $400,000 renovation.   

Rodney Rosmarin is a former executive with Commonwealth Bank

They also sold their second home, a sprawling 1915 Rose Manor in Bowral in the NSW Southern Highlands for $4million in August last year after a $400,000 renovation 

Her Optus salary has not been disclosed but insiders suggest it’s about $5.15million a year.

When she worked at the Commonwealth Bank, she was handed an extra $1million as a termination payout. 

Mr Rosmarin had left the CBA before his wife, finishing up in December 2017 after almost 14 years with the bank. 

He has worked as an ‘independent consultant’ since then. 

What’s the latest scandal facing Optus?

More than 10 million people across the country on Wednesday were affected when the entire Optus network went offline starting at 4am, with the services not fully restored until 5.30pm. 

Ms Bayer Rosmarin was missing in action for hours when the telco crashed – only to finally break cover almost seven hours after the outage was first reported to admit they still had not identified the source of the problem.

The embattled CEO was dodging calls from government ministers after the Optus network crashed on Wednesday morning, cutting off phone calls, texts and internet access for 10 million customers and impacting hospitals, banks and trains which use their network.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said she had been unable to get answers from Optus on the outage until the corporate giant finally released an update hours later.

And telecoms minister Michelle Rowland slammed the telco for not getting on the front foot by addressing the issue publicly.

Businesses were unable to process card transactions because they were connected to Optus

There is no hiding when the network goes down. Ten million people were directly affected

‘Customers want to know what is going on and I would urge Optus to get that information out to any channels that are possible and to do that as a priority,’ she said.

But shortly after 10.30am Ms Rosmarin rang in to ABC Sydney over WhatsApp because Optus was down.

She apologised for the outage but admitted the network had not yet established the ‘root cause’ of the problem. 

Early signs suggest a ‘misconfiguration’ of the telco’s border gateway protocol (BGP) routers caused the nine hour-plus nationwide meltdown.

BGP is an essential factor in the movement of internet traffic globally, which has been compared to the way GPS systems tell driverless cars where to go. 

Does she have a future with Optus?

Though Optus and its CEO weathered the storm of the 2022 data breach, that saw the private information of 10 million customers hacked, the future for Ms Bayer Rosmarin now looks less certain after Wednesday network collapse.

For most people, the data breach had little effect on their lives – it was just something happening on the dark web and hard to care that much about unless your personal details were used by criminals.

Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin (pictured) was missing in action for almost six hours as the Singapore-owned telco faced another massive crisis since she took over

But there is no hiding when the network goes down. 10 million people were directly affected. 

Hospitals and trains services were affected. Businesses were unable to process card transactions because they were connected to Optus. 

It is nothing short of a disaster for this to happen to a telecommunications company and questions are already being asked about how effective Ms Bayer Rosmarin is at her job. 

Despite this, she has refused calls to stand down and is adamant she can remain in the top job. 

READ MORE: Optus CEO vanishes for hours after network crashes 

Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin was missing in action after the Singapore-owned telco crashed – only to finally break cover almost seven hours after the outage was first reported to admit they still had not identified the source of the problem.