The Global Telecoms Business Power 100 list for 2014 has been revealed. While many countries took the stage, African telecom CEOs took up four positions. Each CEO has moved up the rankings over the past few years. This showcases that Africa has moved from strength to strength when it comes to the Global Telecom market.
For 2014, here are the top African Telecom CEOs who dominated the list:
Nic Rudnick, CEO of Liquid Telecom (#60)
Nic Rudnick has continued to grow Liquid Telecom by building on the network’s strengths, winning customers and by investing heavily in African businesses.
Recent highlights include the historic completion of the first redundant fibre ring in east Africa; building the first fibre link into Somalia; the opening of the East Africa Data Centre; becoming the first operator to build an African satellite hub at Teraco’s vendor-neutral earth station in Cape Town and being the first to offer FTTH services in both Zimbabwe and Zambia.
To add to this, Liquid Telecom continues to lay around 100 kilometres of new cable in Africa every week. Rudnick has changed the face of telecoms in southern, central and eastern Africa and continues in his mission of building Africa’s digital future.
Chris Wood CEO of WIOCC (#62)
Chris Wood has grown WIOCC into a successful, profitable wholesale capacity business in Africa. In the first quarter of 2014 he brought affordable, direct, high-capacity, low-latency international connectivity to the 10 million inhabitants of Somalia for the first time.
Wood continues to expand Africa’s carriers’ carrier in line with its rapidly-growing customer base, again delivering significant year-on-year financial growth — revenues up 40% and profits more than 100% — making further investment in core network, increasing staff by 40% and doubling the size of the network operations centre.
Sifiso Dabengwa, Group President and CEO of MTN (#87)
Zimbabwean-born Sifiso Dabengwa has been CEO of South African-based operator MTN since 2011, having previously been COO. He has been with the company since 1999 and ran its Nigerian operation in 2004- 2006. MTN is a wide-ranging company, with operations across Africa and in the Middle East.
Dabengwa has an engineering background, having worked as a consulting electrical engineer in the building services industry and in the mining and railway sectors before joining South Africa’s state electricity company Eskom as executive director responsible for sales, customer service, electrification and distribution technology.
Shameel Joosub, CEO and Executive Director at Vodacom Group (#91).
Mohamed Shameel Joosub has been CEO of the group only since September 2012, having returned to the group after spending the previous year running Vodafone Spain.
Joosub was earlier managing director of Vodacom South Africa and joined the company in 1994 when it was a joint venture, now dissolved, with the incumbent operator Telkom.
Like its rival South African operator MTN, Vodacom is an active operator across Africa.
Darryl Linington
