Telco Moves – ICT executive announcements from Week 4 of 2020
Movings and shakings in the 4th week of 2020 – what are the latest executive hires and leadership changes in the ICT sector?
AVAYA
Avaya Holdings Corp. announced it has appointed Simon Harrison as Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, effective January 27th. Harrison joins Avaya from leading research and advisory firm, Gartner, where he was research director and lead analyst for the Unified Communications and Contact Center industry.
The company also announced he appointment of Steve Joyner as Managing Director of the UK and Ireland (UK&I). Joyner will be reporting to Ronald Rubens, Vice President, Europe.
Prior to being appointed UK&I Managing Director, Joyner was the company’s European channel lead.
Sri Lanka Telecom
State-owned Sri Lanka Telecom (STL) has appointed Rohan Fernando as its new chairman, according to reports in the Sri Lankan press.
The report confirmed that W.K.H. Wegapitiya, Kanishka Senanayake, Nilanthi Pieris and Pradeep Kumara have all resigned as directors of Sri Lanka Telecom, following the results of the presidential election.
In addition, Sri Lanka Telecom has announced the appointment of Lalith Seneviratne, Mohan Weerakoon, A K Seneviratne and Ranjith Rubasinghe to its board of directors with effect from 23rd January 2020.
Sri Lanka Telecom is Sri Lanka’s largest telco, with over 8 million subscribers across the country.
HKBN
Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited has announced two new executive appointments:
- Chun Yu (aka CY) Chan as Chief Talent & Purpose Officer (“CT&PO”), overseeing strategy and development of the Group’s Talent culture, Talent engagement, core purpose and corporate social investment.
- Sam Tan in a newly created role of Chief Innovation Officer (“CIO”), responsible for developing all elements of the Group’s Information Technology (“IT”) strategy to drive innovation.
MTN Zambia
Effective as of 1 February, Komba Malukutila will serve as MTN Zambia’s new Chief FinTech – Chief Financial Technology officer.
Prior to his appointment, Malukutila served as General Manager of enterprise business at MTN Zambia.
Axiata
The Board of Axiata Group Berhad announced that Dato’ Mohd Izzaddin Idris has been appointed as Deputy Group CEO (“Deputy GCEO”) and Group CEO-designate with immediate effect as of 24 January 2020. He is currently a Board member of Axiata Group Berhad and is redesignated as an Executive Director.
The Board also announced that President and Group Chief Executive Officer (“GCEO”), Tan Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim‘s contract which expires on 2 March 2020 will be extended until end 2020.
Du
Osman Sultan, the CEO of UAE-based telecommunications company du, has been appointed as a board member of Searchie, a Dubai-based artificial intelligence video recruitment platform.
Upstream
Upstream has appointed Raul Martinez as its new Chief Commercial Officer. Based in London, Martinez will be responsible for driving Upstream’s revenue growth and business acceleration across existing and new markets.
Previously Raul spent more than eight years with the Millicom Group leading commercial, marketing and strategic functions for the Group’s Mobile and Mobile Money Divisions in Latin America and Africa.
Affluence
Affluence Corporation, a telecom infrastructure company, announced that it has appointed Rohan Chanmugam to serve on its Board of Directors. Mr. Chanmugam is Chairman of Clevercoms Ltd., a management consultancy advising the telecoms, media and technology (TMT) sector and has over 30 years of experience in the industry. In addition to founding Clevercoms, Mr Chanmugam was a Senior Vice President at Equant (Orange Business Services), Managing Director BT A&M, Strategic Advisor to the CEO of COLT Telecom, and Non-Executive Director of Host Europe Corporation.
SoftBank
Japan’s SoftBank has appointed telecoms veteran Manoj Kohli as its India country head to handle government relations at a time when the companies it is backing are under intense scrutiny.
Broadvoice
Broadvoice has named George Mitsopoulos, the company’s longtime COO, to take on the new role of CPO. As CPO, he will oversee strategy and execution of all product-related activities, including establishing a product vision, product innovation, product development, product design, software engineering and network operations.
The COO position will be filled by Herb Pyles, a telecom industry veteran with more than two decades of experience in global operations and customer experience. In this role, Pyles oversees Broadvoice’s day-to-day operations, including service delivery, customer care and business support.
Tollring
Tollring has hired Graham Evans to head up business strategy in Asia Pacific.
Based in Melbourne, Australia, Graham brings with him over 20 years of management expertise in product, marketing and sales within the telecommunications industry having previously worked at Vonage, Vocus, M2 Telecommunications, AAPT and Hutchison Telecom.
Having recently helped Vonage to launch into the Australian region with its UC offering for the SMB market, Graham’s appointment comes at a good time for Tollring.
Garuda
Garuda Indonesia on Wednesday named a new CEO and enacted several other leadership changes as it addresses a series of scandals that rocked its previous management.
The airline appointed Irfan Setiaputra Chief Executive Officer. A relative newcomer to aviation, Setiaputra graduated from Indonesia’s Bandung Institute of Technology and previously served as CEO and president director at various telecommunications companies, including Sigfox Indonesia in 2019 and PT Industri Telekomunikasi Indonesia (INTI) from 2009 to 2012.
Symphony AI
SymphonyAI Group announced that Dominic Gallello has joined as CEO of Symphony IndustrialAI and its portfolio company, Symphony AzimaAI.
Gallello is an established technology executive with a comprehensive background in engineering vertical software solutions at companies, including MSC Software, Autodesk, Macromedia and Intergraph Japan.
Channel 4
Channel 4 has appointed Miketta Lane as Head of Production and Operations for its award-winning in-house creative agency 4Creative.
Reporting into Chief Marketing Officer Zaid Al-Qassab, Miketta will be responsible for the production and financial control of 4Creative’s on-air and off-air campaigns, as well as managing relationships with key external suppliers.
Poly
Plantronics, Inc. (“Poly” – formerly Plantronics and Polycom) announced the appointment of Carl Wiese as Executive Vice President,Chief Revenue Officer, Global Head of Sales, effective immediately.
Wiese comes to Poly following a role as the president of global sales and service for BlackBerry Limited where he was hired to transform the company from a device business to one of the most respected cyber security companies. While at Blackberry, Wiese was responsible for leading the company’s enterprise software business.
Prior to his role at Blackberry, Wiese has also held executive positions at Apple, Avaya, Cisco, Lucent Technologies Inc., and Texas Instruments.
Chayora
Chayora, the Hong Kong-based data centre infrastructure company, announces ahead of PTC’20 that it has appointed Ms. Yali Z. Liu as Executive Vice President, Network & Strategy.
Yali was previously Executive Director at Verizon, responsible for global network planning, engineering and network product development, leading large geographically dispersed global teams to provide development and operational support for innovative product portfolios while aligning technology strategy with business and financial objectives.
Airgain
Earlier this month, Airgain announced the appointment of David Lyle as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Before joining Airgain, Lyle was the CFO of Sunniva. Prior to Sunniva, he was CFO at Maxwell Technologies for four years, which was acquired by Tesla in 2019.
FCC
Dr Monisha Ghosh has been named 1st woman Chief Technology Officer at the US government’s powerful Federal Communications Commission.
An independent US government agency overseen by Congress, the FCC is the federal agency responsible for implementing and enforcing America’s communications law and regulations.
Intel
Carlos Cordeiro has been promoted to the position of CTO, Wireless Communication Solutions.
Have we missed anything? Email us at info@phoenixcareer.co.uk or comment directly under this post if there is a leadership announcement we have not included in our weekly roundups.
Subscribe to our newsletter to get the weekly summary of telco exec moves straight into your inbox.
