With all attention focused on new Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo’s first results presentation in Melbourne today, The Fin Review
(subscription) reports on increasing fears inside Australia’s biggest
company, with executives reportedly scared stiff about Sol’s power
hungry control over everything that happens in the upper echelons of
the company.

The Telstra board is publicly spinning that this is
exactly why they hired Sol, but privately could they be a little
worried about the feathers he’s already ruffled in Canberra and among
Australia’s business community?

And it’s a worrying sign when you look back at his past shake-up attempts. The Weekend Fin
on July 16 had a detailed stab at weaving us through Sol’s
less-than-glamorous past at medium sized (also known as Baby Bell) US
Telco US West, but a Crikey tipster has turned up some interesting
reports and quotes from the man himself that should have Australian
business a little scared.

Colorado newspaper the Denver Westworld
covered the class action filed against US West in 1997 for not
delivering phone line services, providing this round-up of Trujillo’s
treatment of his regional customers:

US West’s wheeling and dealing resulted in appalling
telephone service in Colorado, but it gave company executives,
including CEO Sol Trujillo, a chance to take turns becoming
multi-millionaires. This year they hit the jackpot again when they
agreed to merge the company with Qwest Communications International in
a $45.2 billion deal.

And you can read more reports about Sol’s time at US West here and the eventual Qwest (after it took over US West) settlement here.

The Denver Business Journal also reports some interesting dealings just before Sol’s company US West merged with telco Qwest:

US West Communications, guided by its CEO, Sol Trujillo,
gave more than $1 million in charitable contributions to organizations
that in turn presented awards to Trujillo during the months prior to
the merger of US West and Qwest Communications International Inc.

Barnaby Joyce, and everyone else in the bush, should be rightly worried
if his comments during the class action at US West are any indication
of his approach to Australian telecommunications. “What I’d like to do
is meet everybody in the marketplace and get everybody out of the
courts, as they say,” the then head of US West said in a 1998 Fox News
interview.