She had been groomed for heady heights and back in 1999, 37-year-old Theresa Gattung was trotted out by the retiring head of Telecom, Rod Deane, who announced her as his successor.

Given what's happened in the 11 years since, the good Doctor Deane could be forgiven for thinking that he'd peaked too early. He could only manage to scrape an annual salary package of around two million bucks.

Three years ago the woman who coveted becoming the head of New Zealand's biggest company, as it then was, since she was a teenager exited with suitcases stuffed with five and a half million notes.

And now this blond pot is calling the kettle black in a book which will hit the stores this Friday, saying her successor, Scotsman Paul Reynolds isn't worth the seven million notes a year he stands to pick up. Her point is that Telecom's profits have halved since she left but executive salaries have risen.

What makes anyone worth seven million, let alone two million a year beggars belief. But these high flying executives certainly know how to milk the cash cow.

In fairness to the Scotsman, who unlike his countrymen seems to be willing to part with some of his cash, he's expecting his three million dollar bonus to be docked this year because of the frequent crashes of the much heralded XT cellphone network.

And the teenage dreamer Gattung blames the network's failure on the number of executives following her out the door which no doubt left the company drained of millions in exit payments.

It was on the network that I had an interview with her but unfortunately before it was finished the inevitable happened, her phone crashed.

And it began in such a promising way with the dial tone being replaced with that Beach Boys hit of the 60s, Good Vibrations!

Barry Soper

Political Editor

Newstalk ZB.