Theresa Eyssens departs from Optus

Theresa Eyssens

Optus’ vice president of customer solutions and cloud, Theresa Eyssens, has left the telco after two and a half years.

Optus has confirmed her departure and ARN understands that Eyssens has taken up a position at Accenture.

A spokesperson for the telco claimed that her "commitment, talent, and passion has been evident in all her dealings for Optus and we thank her for the amazing contributions she has made". 

"Whilst we’re sad to see Theresa go, we understand the decision was a difficult one for her to make.

"We want to wish her all the best and look forward to seeing her continue to prosper with this exciting next step."

Eyssens first joined Optus in August 2020 to take up the absence left by Simon Vatcher, who moved on from his roles of managing director of Optus Business and vice president of Optus to be Avaya's managing director for Australia and New Zealand. Vatcher has since left Avaya and is now the company director of exceliss group.

An Optus spokesperson confirmed at the time of her appointment that while she was not a “100 per cent like for like” replacement for Vatcher, Eyssens took on some of his responsibilities. 

During her two and a half years at the telco, Optus signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to create a dedicated business unit, as well as AWS training for 2,000 employees in October 2020.

A year later in September 2021, the telco was granted the ability to sell Microsoft’s Operator Connect, which allows customers to connect their operator-based PSTN service into Microsoft Teams with a managed experience.

She also won the Partner award in the Achievement category at the ARN Women in ICT Awards 2022, which was announced in May of that year.

Prior to her time at Optus, she was vice president of customer success at Salesforce – a position she held for over four years.

Eyssens spent the bulk of her career at IBM, totalling 17 years over two separate stints and various leadership roles.

She also had an eight-month stint as the CEO of Datacom between 2004 and 2005, where she built its Australian Systems business. 

Eyssens, Optus and Accenture have all been approached for comment.