Who Is Robyn Denholm? Tesla Announces Elon Musk's Replacement As Board Chair

American automotive company Tesla announced Thursday that it has appointed Robyn Denholm to replace Elon Musk as the chairman of its board of directors.

Denholm is currently serving as chief operations officer of Telstra Corporation Limited, a telecommunications company, and also as chair for Tesla's audit committee. She will join Tesla on a full-time basis once her six-month notice period with Telstra is completed. She has served on Tesla’s board since 2014.

Forbes reported that Denholm will temporarily step down as Tesla’s audit committee chair until she serves her notice period. She will, however, continue to act as a resource for Telstra and receive an annual retainer of $300,000 from the telecommunications company and stock allotments.

“I believe in this company, I believe in its mission and I look forward to helping Elon and the Tesla team achieve sustainable profitability and drive long-term shareholder value,” Denholm said, Bloomberg reported.

Musk was forced to step down from the role of chairman in September as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) following his tweets on taking the company private. He had said he was considering to take Tesla private at $420 a share, and even had some funding secured for it.

“Robyn has extensive experience in both the tech and auto industries, and she has made significant contributions as a Tesla Board member over the past four years in helping us become a profitable company. I look forward to working even more closely with Robyn as we continue accelerating the advent of sustainable energy,” Musk said.

Besides agreeing to a three-year ban from serving as chairman, Musk also agreed that the company will add two new independent directors to the board by December. It would also create a permanent committee for ensuring that the terms of SEC are implemented, which includes setting up controls to oversee Musk’s communication.

Denholm received an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Sydney and a Master’s degree in Commerce from the University of New South Wales. She had earlier worked as the executive vice president, chief and operations officer at Juniper Networks, Inc.; senior vice president- corporate strategic planning at Sun Microsystems, Inc. and as an accounting manager at Toyota Motor Corp. Australia Ltd.

In July, she was moved to the role of Telstra’s chief financial officer following the departure of Warwick Bray.