Telecel parent company appoints new directors

Published: 29 April 2014

Telecel Zimbabwe's parent company VimpelCom Ltd has appointed two new directors on its board, Hamid Akhavan and Andrei Gusev.

The duo replaces Sergei Tesliuk and Andrei Baranov, respectively.

The company said their tenure in office will be effective until the next annual general meeting of shareholders of the company on December 31, 2014.

Akhavan served as the CEO of Unify Inc. (previously Siemens Enterprise Communications) from 2010 until 2014, and has been a member of its board of directors since January 2014.

His extensive industry experience includes general management, international sales and marketing,softwareand product development, as well as technology, IT and procurement.

Akhavan holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and an MS degree in the same fields from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Gusev has been a managing director at Altimo since 2013 and between 2011 and 2012, he was Chief Executive Officer of LSE-listed X5 RetailGroup N.V.

Between 2006 and 2010, he was director of businessdevelopment and M&A of X5.

He also served as MD of the Alfa Group with overall responsibility for Investment Planning; he also worked at Bain & Company and Deloitte Consulting.

In 2000 he received an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (USA).

VimpelCom owns 60 percent of Telecel Zimbabwe through its Egyptian subsidiary Orascom.

In 2012 VimpelCom announced plans to pull out of Zimbabwe as part of its plan to rationalise its global telecoms operations and focus on core growth areas.

The move, which would have assisted in the company's indigenisation plans, has however not materialised.
- BH24

Tags: Telecel,