Managing a Nation in Crisis: COVID-19

David Thodey was born in Perth, Western Australia. He was educated at Nelson College in New Zealand from 1967 to 1971[4] and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and English from Victoria University of Wellington. Thodey attended the Kellogg School of Management postgraduate general management program at Northwestern University in Chicago.

Thodey held several senior executive positions in marketing and sales within IBM Australia/New Zealand and across IBM Asia Pacific, including holding the position of managing director for Australia between 1999 and 2000.

Thodey joined Telstra in April 2001 as Group Managing Director of Telstra Mobiles. He was appointed to the position of Group Managing Director Telstra Enterprise and Government in December 2002 and was responsible for the company’s corporate, government and large business customers in Australia, TelstraClear in New Zealand and Telstra’s International sales division. He became Chief Executive Officer of Telstra on 19 May 2009, following the departure of American Sol Trujillo from the office. Thodey retired from his position at Telstra in April 2015.

Thodey was appointed Chair of the CSIRO Board, with effect from November 2015. In 2017 Thodey was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to business, notably to the telecommunications and information technology sectors, to the promotion of ethical leadership and workplace diversity, and to basketball.

In May 2018, the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced an independent review of the Australian Public Service as a whole, to be chaired by Thodey. The review is to produce “an ambitious program of transformational reforms to ensure the APS is fit-for-purpose for the coming decades, and to guide and accelerate future reform activities”.

In March 2020, David was appointed as Deputy Chair to the newly established The National COVID-19 Coordination Commission (NCCC) established to coordinate advice to the government about the social and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, to cushion the economic impact and pave the way for recovery.