Welcome to another installment of Telco Moves!
Your biweekly guide to the notable hires, promotions and leadership changes in the global Telecom and ICT community.
Here are some of the major executive moves announcements from the second half of July 2020.
You can review the leadership announcements from the first half of July via this link.
- Telia
- Airtel
- BT
- Global Cloud Xchange
- Telecom Malaysia
- IBM
- Orange
- NTT
- Safaricom
- Oracle
- Cognizant
- Cisco
- Horizon
- Everstream
- HMD Global
- Hrvatski Telekom
- AT&T
- HPE
Telia
Changes in Telia Company’s Group Executive Management
Per Christian Mørland is appointed Group Chief Financial Officer and Dr. Rainer Deutschmann is appointed Group Chief Operating Officer of Telia Company.
Bharti Airtel
Airtel appoints Ganesh Lakshminarayanan as CEO-Enterprise Business
Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s largest integrated telco, announced the appointment of Ganesh Lakshminarayanan as CEO-Enterprise Business.
Ganesh brings with him rich experience in the IT and technology sector. Prior to joining Airtel, he was COO for Capillary Technologies. He was instrumental in starting Dell’s operations in India twenty years ago. Over the years, Ganesh led various functions at Dell – Global Consumer and SME Services, E-Commerce business for Americas and Sales Ops for APAC. In his last role at Dell, he was the President and MD of Dell India. He was also an advisor to start-ups like Practo, Belong and Porter and served on the executive councils of NASSCOM and FICCI.
BT
Rob Shuter appointed CEO of BT’s Enterprise unit
BT Group announced the appointment of Rob Shuter as CEO of its Enterprise unit and as a member of BT’s Executive Committee.
Rob is currently Group President and CEO at MTN Group, Africa’s leading mobile telecommunications company with 250 million customers across 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East. Prior to joining MTN he served as CEO of Vodafone’s European Cluster as well as being CEO of Vodafone Netherlands. Rob is expected to join by the end of the 2020/21 financial year.
Gerry McQuade the current CEO of BT Enterprise has announced he will be retiring from BT. Gerry has spent more than 12 years at EE and then BT, initially joining BT as the CEO of Wholesale and Ventures before moving on to lead the integration of that unit with Business and Public Sector to form the combined Enterprise business in 2018.
Global Cloud Xchange
Carl Grivner appointed Chief Executive Officer of GCX
Telecom Malaysia
Third leadership change in 3 years sees Imri Mokhtar appointed as Telekom Malaysia’s Group CEO
Dato’ Noor Kamarul leaves TM in a better position despite the current unprecedented challenges amidst the Covid19 pandemic. Dato’ Noor Kamarul joined TM as MD/GCEO on 13 June 2019.
Imri, 47, brings with him over 24 years of experience in telecommunications and strategy. His last position was as Chief Operations Officer (COO) at Celcom Axiata Berhad since 1 May 2020, where he was responsible to drive operational excellence throughout the organisation and provide leadership in the technology and identified functions within the enabler group. Imri’s last held position in TM was also COO where he was responsible for the business operations of unifi, TM ONE and TM Global. Imri was TM’s Acting Group CEO from November 2018 to June 2019.
IBM
IBM Appoints First Female Regional Head for Africa
Orange
Orange names new CEO in Moldova
NTT
NTT Ltd. in the Philippines announces Ireen Catane as new CEO
NTT Ltd. announced the appointment of Ireen Catane as CEO for NTT Ltd. in the Philippines. She assumes the leadership role with immediate effect and will report to Kim-Meng Png, ASEAN CEO for NTT Ltd.
The appointment comes at an opportune time following the rebrand of DTSI Group and Dimension Data as NTT Ltd. on October 1, 2019 to offer clients in the Philippines greater depth in skills and capabilities across technologies, under a single, unified brand. Catane will helm the Philippine business with a focus on forging strong client relationships, delivering value to stakeholders, and talent development. In addition, she will lead the ongoing integration efforts of NTT Ltd. in the Philippines.
Catane joins NTT Ltd. with over 28 years of experience in the IT industry leading successful teams in brand management, channel distribution, business development and client management. Prior to joining NTT Ltd., Catane held various country leadership roles in HP, Dell, IBM and most recently as Enterprise Commercial Director at Microsoft Philippines.
Safaricom
Michael Joseph appointed Safaricom Chairman
Safaricom board has appointed Michael Joseph as the next Chairman of Safaricom’s Board of Directors following the retirement of current chairman Mr. Nicholas Nganga after serving for 16 years on the Board of which 13 he served as the chairman
Michael has been serving as non-executive board member since 2008.
Oracle
Oracle names new ANZ leadership
Oracle has reshuffled its ANZ leadership team with two key appointments including a new managing director Cherie Ryan.
The company’s former regional managing director for ANZ Valery Lanovenko will remain with the company but has taken a new role as vice president for strategic cloud accounts in EMEA. Ryan joined the company in October 2019 as sales director for key accounts. She previously held senior regional and global roles at leading technology companies including Ericsson, Novell, Genesys, NetApp and Microsoft.
In addition, Oracle has named Russell Pike as its new head of applications for the region. Pike joined the company in 1991 as one of its first employees in New Zealand. He recently returned to Auckland from the United States where he spent close to 20 years working in senior management positions.
Cognizant
Cognizant Announces Chief Financial Officer Transition
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation announced that Jan Siegmund will be appointed Chief Financial Officer, effective September 1, 2020.
Siegmund most recently served as CFO of Automatic Data Processing (“ADP”), a leading global human capital management technology and service provider. He will succeed Karen McLoughlin, who will continue in the CFO role through August 31, 2020, and will remain with the Company in an advisory role through December 31, 2020.
Siegmund previously held various leadership and executive roles during his 20-year tenure at ADP, most recently serving as Corporate Vice President and Chief Financial Officer from 2012 to 2019. Prior to that, Siegmund was Chief Strategy Officer and President of ADP’s Added Value Services Division from April 2009 to October 2012. Siegmund is a member of the Board of Directors of The Western Union Company.
Cisco
Cisco ANZ CTO departs, launches own advisory
Cisco ANZ chief technology officer Kevin Bloch will leave the role he has held for 21 years on Friday to start his own technology advisory company. Bloch spent the last 12 years as CTO of Cisco ANZ and prior to that, held other senior roles within the company.
His new venture, Bloch Advisory Pty Ltd, was established to assist startups, telcos and corporates invest in R&D and commercialise their own technology.
Bloch originally joined Cisco to create its telecommunications service provider franchise and later headed up Engineering in the region across Cisco’s entire technology portfolio. Prior to Cisco, Kevin held positions with OTC (now Telstra), as well as JNA Telecommunications, a local R&D startup that was eventually acquired by Lucent Technologies.
Horizon
Horizon names James Capuano Chief Executive Officer
Horizon, a leading regional fiber-optic bandwidth infrastructure services provider based in Columbus, Ohio, announced that James (Jim) Capuano has been named the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) as of July 23, 2020.
Capuano has more than 30 years’ experience in the telecommunications industry. Prior to joining Horizon, he served as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of FirstLight Fiber, in Albany, NY.
Capuano’s other professional roles include: Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Unite Private Networks, in Kansas City, MO; COO at Veroxity Technology Partners, in Bedford, MA; and Vice President of Engineering and Operations at RCN Metro, in Westborough, MA. In these positions, he led telecommunications engineering and operations, network construction, expansion selections and planning, product development, vendor assessment and selection, marketing, technical sales and business support.
Everstream
Drew Mullin named Everstream Executive Vice President, Corporate Development
Everstream, the business-only fiber network, announced that it has named Drew Mullin as Executive Vice President, Corporate Development.
In this newly created role, Mullin will lead a team to analyze Everstream’s network, new and existing markets, the broader industry and competitive landscape to build a cadence of decision making that pushes Everstream to overachieve its goals. Mullin will serve as a key member of the executive team, reporting to Everstream President and CEO Brett Lindsey.
Mullin has 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, with a focus on leveraging fiber assets to obtain strong ROIs on capital. Most recently, Mullin served as the head of Business Development and Strategy for Crown Castle.
HMD Global
Juho Sarvikas appointed as VP for North America
Juho Sarvikas, Chief Product Officer, HMD Global, has been appointed as the new Vice President for North America. HMD Global, in a statement, said that with this new position, Juho Sarvikas’ responsibility will be to “unify product marketing efforts and strengthen relations with carriers to deliver the next generation of Nokia smartphones to North American consumers.”
Furthermore, HMD Global also said that the company hopes to stay in the close vicinity of the telecom carriers in North America, with Juho Sarvikas focusing on expanding the range of Nokia Mobile’s prepaid and postpaid devices in the U.S.
Hrvatski Telekom
Daniel Daub retains Hrvatski Telekom role
Daniel Daub has been appointed a member of the management board and CFO at Hrvatski Telekom (HT) for two more years, commencing November 1, when his current mandate expires.
He originally took on the roles in 2017 after holding the function of VP equity and innovation controlling at Deutsche Telekom headquarters. Prior to this, from 2006 to 2014, he held various management positions: in T-Mobile Austria, from senior VP channel development & services, to senior VP consumer sales & service, as well as VP market management / sales planning and reporting in T-Mobile Deutschland.
In other changes at the incumbent Croatian telco, Eirini Nikolaidi, Ivica Misetic and Gordan Gledec have ben elected supervisory board members and Ivica Misetic deputy chairman of the supervisory board.
AT&T
AT&T CT president tapped to lead company’s regional efforts.
John Emra, president of AT&T Connecticut, has gotten his second promotion in three months. Emra has been named president of the telecommunications company’s New England region. He will lead the company’s strategy, policy and corporate affairs activities, as well as guide governmental and community policy decisions.
Emra’s latest promotion comes after he was named leader of AT&T’s external and legislative affairs for New England at the end of April. He will retain his role of president of AT&T Connecticut and will remain based in New Haven.
Emra began his career at AT&T in September 2001. He worked as its regional vice president for external and legislative affairs in Connecticut until being named president in 2013.
HPE
HPE Promotes Legal Exec John Schultz To Chief Operating Officer
Hewlett Packard Enterprise legal eagle John Schultz, who was heading up a transformation office initiative to accelerate HPE’s pivot to an everything-as-a-service company, has been promoted to chief operating officer.
Schultz was named chief legal and administrative officer and secretary for HPE in December 2017. He became general counsel of HPE when Hewlett Packard separated into two companies in 2015.
As COO, John will continue to lead HPE’s Transformation Office and the Office of Legal and Administrative Affairs, HPE said.
The latest HPE executive change comes just two and a half months after HPE CEO Antonio Neri restructured the company for a “post COVID 19” world as a more agile organization with a new chief technology officer and head of software, Kumar Sreekanti, and a new GreenLake Cloud Services Business Group headed up by former Microsoft cloud superstar Keith White.
Have we missed anything? Email us at info@phoenixcareer.co.uk or comment directly under this post if there is a leadership announcement we should have included in our weekly roundups.
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