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IS shuffles executives

Candice Jones
By Candice Jones, ITWeb online telecoms editor
Johannesburg, 21 Feb 2008

Internet Solutions (IS) operating officer Greg Payne will leave the company to take up the sales and marketing directorship of Afrihost. The handover will take place in mid-March.

Tony Walt will assume the role of COO, combining those with his current duties as chief customer officer for IS. "Afrihost is both a significant customer and partner of IS. As such, I will have to stay up to date with what IS is doing, to ensure our solutions meet customer demands," says Payne.

Afrihost uses IS infrastructure to run its solutions in Web hosting and e-mail for small and medium business, he says. Payne has been with IS for 12 years. "It will be a new chapter in my life. I am moving to a smaller company to help it grow its business."

IS CEO Angus MacRobert says he is sad to see Payne go. "However, I also wish him well in his new venture. He has done a lot for our business and our customers during this time during his tenure. We want him to succeed."

According to MacRobert, IS expects to maintain contact with Payne through his involvement with Afrihost. "We already have a good relationship with our partner, and having Greg there will only strengthen that relationship. He is going to be working closely with us, so he is not really leaving IS."

More changes

Walt will take up the workflow operations, dealing primarily with the client service areas. "He was the perfect fit to this position, because along with his duties as customer officer, he will now be able to provide a full end-to-end customer relations system," says MacRobert.

Costa Koutakis has been appointed as the new client services director and will report to Walt. "Costa's promotion comes after eight years of exceptional performance at IS, and we are very proud to have him as fellow divisional director," states MacRobert.

"I am very excited about the year ahead of us. We sold more hosting real estate last year than the previous seven years combined. And we are currently rolling out two of the biggest networks we have managed to date - SARS and Tenet," adds MacRobert.

He says the company now needs to focus on the interconnect regime to lower voice tariffs after entering the voice market.

Related story:
IS signs MTN interconnect

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