MTN has made a number of senior management appointments, including a new COO as the group announces that Jyoti Desai is retiring.
Jens Schulte-Bockum will assume the position of group COO on 16 January 2017 when Desai retires. MTN says Schulte-Bockum has extensive operational experience in the mobile telecoms sector, with his last senior role being as CEO of Vodafone Germany between 2012 and 2015.
"We expect [Schulte-Bockum] to bring extensive experience in the consumer business, as well as the area of large scale transformation in a convergent operation," the group said in a statement.
Desai only took up the role of group COO on 1 December 2015 but has spent 15 years at MTN and previously held the positions of CIO at MTN Nigeria and COO of MTN Irancell.
Oliver Fortuin will assume the position of executive head of business enterprise, effective 1 March 2017. He is currently the CEO of BT Global Services Sub Saharan Africa, having previously held many senior roles at IBM, HP and Lenovo.
MTN says as head of BT Global Services he was engaged in the development and sale of enterprise solutions to many multinationals across the African continent and he will greatly enhance the telco's strategy in this area.
MTN also announced that Bernice Samuels has re-joined it as group executive of marketing, effective 1 January 2017. Samuels was previously chief marketing officer in MTN SA, prior to assuming a similar role at FNB. She subsequently assumed the position of executive director of strategy and business development at SABMiller in South Africa.
MTN says Samuels "will greatly assist in lifting and repositioning product development and uplifting the MTN brand to maintain its pre-eminent position in Africa and the Middle East, whilst adapting to a rapidly evolving sector".
"These senior management appointments bring to finality the management aspect of a large scale transformation and operational review process which I am confident will place the group in good stead to capitalise on its many prospects and reach its full potential in a rapidly transforming and exciting sector," says Phuthuma Nhleko, MTN group executive chairman.
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