"But I should stress it has been his decision. I am sad to see him go because he's a very good executive."

Fahour will not be receiving a termination payment as his departure is a resignation.

Fahour told Chanticleer that he first talked to Stanhope about the next stage of his career late last year.

The former banker and consultant says he plans to work until the end of the financial year and then take the rest of the year off.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Fahour's package of $4.6 million in 2016 was too much money. David Rowe

He says he believes he has completed the strategic targets he had set himself when he took over as CEO in 2010 and it is time to move on.

The latest interim profit results include an analysis of the financial performance over the past seven years which show his tenure in a favourable light.

It says mail volumes have declined by 50 per cent, $4 billion has been paid to the government in dividends, taxes and community service payments and forward losses from letters have been cut to $1.5 billion.


The analysis says the parcels business, which is now valued at $5 billion, had more than doubled its revenue and tripled its profit. It has a market share in the business to consumer parcels segment of 80 per cent.

In the six months to December, Post's parcels business earned $189 million in profit, up 16 per cent on the prior year.

The transformation under Fahour included the redeployment of about 9984 people from the letters business into the parcels business. He says that these people would otherwise have lost their jobs over the past three years.

Stanhope was full of praise for Fahour and continued to defend his pay packet.

"You would not be surprised to hear that in my view he has delivered value for money for the organisation," he says.

"He is one of the few people who are both strategic – so he is good at that – as well as being good at execution.

"That means he is able to get a team around him that is capable of good execution."

Fahour says he has done his job in terms of succession planning by having at least four executives at Post who could potentially replace him as CEO.


These four executives are: chief customer officer Christine Corbett, head of parcels and ecommerce Bob Black, chief financial officer Janelle Hopkins and head of trusted ecommerce services Andrew Walduck.

Stanhope says his first task is to talk to each of the senior executives at Post to ensure they stay with the organisation and continue to work as a team.

"I will talk to each of them and try to shore them up as a close knit team," he says.

"They are all very good. With respect to succession Ahmed has given me his view.

"It will be important to look outside as well at a range of international candidates."

Stanhope says that recent benchmarking conducted by the board found that Fahour's salary package was within the median paid to other large parcel companies both here and overseas.

"I and the board will take into account the community expectations in setting the salary of the new CEO," he says.

"I have not thought what that will be in terms of dollars.


"At the end of the day I have got to find a person who can actually do the job. There is no question the pay will be less than what Ahmed received because it's not within community expectations."

Stanhope says he will be looking for someone who can run a complex logistics business operating in a globally competitive market as well as run a letters business with community obligations and 4400 retail outlets.

Another important issue for the new CEO is to resolve the internal turmoil at the company. This turmoil is reflected in the recent coverage of the disputes between senior managers and unions covered by the AFR.

Stanhope says he cannot answer the question about whether or not Post's parcels business should be privatised.

"I am not asking that question," he says.

"The difficult problem for the government will be securing the future of the letters service."