MTN SA has announced a review of its executive structure, as the company gears up to deliver on its Ambition 2025 strategy to transform from a telco to a techco.
In a statement, the mobile operator says in line with this strategic shift, the company has appointed Ernst Fonternel into the role of chief consumer officer and Divyesh Joshi as chief strategy and transformation Officer.
Both appointments were recruited internally and are effective from 1 October.
MTN says the new executive structure also sees the introduction of two new roles, including that of chief commercial operations officer and chief risk officer.
It adds that active recruiting for these positions is under way.
“The current top-tier structure has been optimal to enable us to evolve and grow the business to where we are today. However, in pursuit of Ambition 2025, the current structure needed to be optimised to adequately support our strategic ambition,” says MTN SA CEO Charles Molapisi.
“I am pleased to announce the appointments of Ernst and Divyesh, both of whom are internal appointments who bring a wealth of knowledge to these roles.”
Fonternel, an industry veteran, has served for well over 20 years in the telecoms industry, the majority of which has been at MTN SA.
According to MTN, he has strong commercial depth with a solid understanding of the SA mobile business models and distributors, and currently leads the digital and online portfolios as chief digital officer within the MTN SA business.
It notes that Fonternel previously served as chief marketing officer (CMO) at MTN Zambia during 2009 to 2012, successfully growing market share and revenue for that business.
He also held the position of CMO in MTN Uganda, where he helped to reposition MTN as the provider of choice in the Ugandan market.
He holds a BComm (Accountancy) qualification from the University of Johannesburg.
The operator adds that having spent many years in the business serving in various leadership roles within the finance business, including acting as interim MTN SA CFO during 2020, Joshi is a dynamic and highly-experienced leader with deep understanding of the telco industry.
He has a strong track record of building and integrating finance functions, solving complex business problems through strong business partnering, leading the delivery of significant business transactions, and providing key financial insights to support commercial decision-making.
Joshi currently holds the position of general manager responsible for finance digital transformation and is a qualified CA (SA) and holds a MComm (Taxation) from the University of Pretoria.
Molapisi explains that these appointments, as well as the recruitment for the new roles, are designed to deliver agile ways of work to simplify cross-functional interfaces, enhancing focus on key and new revenue streams, better aligning commercial and support functions and focused sales and distribution structures.
He says the introduction of the chief commercial operations officer provides an elevated focus on brand and marketing, customer service operations, sales and distribution, regional operations and digital online.
As telcos move towards de-layering and greater verticalisation of business units, the risk function requires particular industry depth, says MTN.
It adds that the risk function requires a thorough telco consideration from the finance, pricing, commercial partnerships, network and IT perspectives.
“We’ve also considered how we can improve our speed to market with fewer layers and evolution of our platform-play as we deliver on Ambition 2025. Finally, we looked at how we can best drive transformation through convergence in the network and IT environments,” says Molapisi.
“The fast-paced world of telecommunications and technology requires an agile, responsive and pioneering leadership approach. To this end, our focus has been on defining, designing and shaping a future-fit leadership model for MTN SA, leveraging the extensive experience and expertise within the senior leadership team,” concludes Molapisi.
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