Bharti Airtel’s African business will soon be run by former MTN exec Christian de Faria as Manoj Kohli is set to return to India.
De Faria is joining Airtel Africa on 16 September and will immediately take over its Anglophone regions.
Kohli, CEO of…
Bharti Airtel’s African business will soon be run by former MTN exec Christian de Faria as Manoj Kohli is set to return to India.
De Faria is joining Airtel Africa on 16 September and will immediately take over its Anglophone regions.
Kohli, CEO of Bharti’s international operations, will relocate to the sub-continent on 1 January 2014. After this point de Faria will take control of the French-speaking and Nigerian operations at Airtel, running the whole continent for Bharti.
De Faria has had spells at telcos including MTN, Telekom Malaysia, and Deutsche Telekom, and has also worked at tech companies.
He has spent the last 10 years at MTN where he was executive vice president for West and Central Africa Region, and later group commercial officer for two years until January 2013.
As CEO of Airtel Africa de Faria will lead the growth agenda across markets and build key skills and capabilities within the organisation.
In a statement Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Airtel, said: “Manoj has successfully embedded our business model and the Airtel brand in Africa, and will now provide governance oversight to the international operations and be involved with the group strategic matters.
Airtel operates across 17 countries in Africa.
