Telstra’s new marketing honcho McKenzie has hardly worked in marketing
Telstra’s new marketing boss is a political insider but has virtually no marketing experience.
The company announced this morning that Kate McKenzie, the group managing director of Telstra Wholesale, will move into the role of group managing director of marketing. The vacancy – which involves overseeing one of Australia’s biggest marketing budgets – has been created by the departure of US executive Bill Stewart, who the company said today would be leaving later this month.
According to the bio on the Telstra website, McKenzie has been with the company since 2004 when she joined as its head of regulatory. She later had a few months covering public affairs and communications before taking the Tesltra Wholesale job in 2006.
Prior to Telstra, Mckenzie was director general of the NSW Department of Commerce, deputy director general of the NSW Cabinet Office and GM of the WorkCover Authority of NSW.
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No need for marketing experience when you are being setup as a “Fall-Girl”…think about it. Stay tuned for mass exit of execs.
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Why does this happen so often in big companies in Australia?
“You are an engineer, here, head up our marketing.”
or/
“Steve headed up our sales team, he watches TV. Let’s chuck him the ad gig.”
No doubt she’s a smart operator but you don’t ask your doctor to represent you in court.
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A little update…
One PR pro who knows her (and doesn’t work at Telstra) tells me: “Kate McKenzie is actually sensational. She has been working very closely with Bill Stewart over the last three plus years and knows the role top to bottom. She will do a good job…promise.”
I think it’s because there is NO politics in marketing. Telstra’s last attempt at the national wirless roll-out was foiled politically – maybe this is a canny move!
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I hear that Eddie Maguire was their first choice, but he and Bert Newton were unavailable.
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I’m a marketer, but based on my experience as a Telstra customer and as a service provider to Telstra marketing, I don’t think it could get much worse there.
There’s no guarantee that a marketer will do a better job just because she or he is a marketer; even less so a telco marketer with marketing myopia.
Less “because that’s the way we do it around here” and more “why don’t we try this?” might be a good thing.
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In a previous role I had the displeasure of working with Telstra and Bigpond on a number of campaigns.
I couldnt adequately describe the pain and politics around even basic briefs but this new appointment makes perfect sense. Here’s hoping Kate’s first job will be to take the “Spread the Good Stuff” campaign out the back and shoot it.
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Selling Telstra is like selling cancer – who’d want to do it?
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I’ve worked for several ‘marketers’ who I had a little trouble with.
Then I found out their last roles were sales, media, telephone reception, physical training, event management, PR, and political relations.
One Marketing Director told me that’s all they could afford!
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