Telecom network operator Bharti Airtel announced top level management changes for its Africa operations.
Raghunath Mandava will be the new COO of Airtel Africa, responsible for all operations in the country. Bharti Airtel has created a cluster model for Airtel Africa and all cluster heads will report to Raghunath Mandava. Earlier, Airtel Africa had 15 operating companies.
Airtel Africa CEO Christian Defaria will become the executive chairman of Airtel Africa.
At present, Raghunath Mandava is the director – Customer Experience, India & South Asia, at Bharti Airtel.
Raghunath Mandava, who joined Airtel in 2003, has served as director – Operations (India); chief marketing officer (India); CEO – Rajasthan Circle (India) and COO – Tamil Nadu Circle (India). Prior to joining Airtel, Raghu worked in Unilever in several sales and marketing roles. Bharti Airtel has also hired Gopal Vittal, the India CEO of Airtel, from the FMCG major Unilever.
Sunil Mittal, chairman of Bharti Airtel said: “We have a strong platform to accelerate our telecom journey towards profitability and market leadership and the new cluster based organization design will provide an enabling environment to the teams.”
Airtel announced the following cluster based organization design.
Cluster 1
Segun Ogunsanya will head Cluster 1 combining Nigeria and Ghana. He will continue to be the MD for Nigeria while Lucy Quist, MD for Ghana will report into him.
Cluster 2
Wim Vanhelleputte will head DRC and Congo Brazzaville. Wim will also have Gerard Lokossou – MD Congo Brazzaville reporting into him.
Cluster 3
Alain Kahasha will look after both Gabon and Madagascar. Heiko Schlittke, MD for Gabon and Maixent Bekangba, MD – Madagascar will both report into him.
Cluster 4
Tom Gutjahr will continue as MD Uganda and also have the MD for Seychelles, Amadou Mahamat Dina, reporting into him.
Cluster 5
Sunil Colaso – MD Tanzania will also have Michael Adjei – MD for Rwandareporting into him.
Cluster 6
Peter Correia takes charge of both Zambia and Malawi. While Peter continues as the MD for Zambia, Charles Kamoto – MD Malawi will also report into him.
Cluster 7
Anwar Soussa will continue as MD for Chad. Raymond Mendy, MD forNiger, will report into Anwar.
Cluster 8
Adil Elyoussefi will continue as the MD of Kenya, said Airtel Africa.
