Millicom (NASDAQ: MIC) has named Cynthia Gordon as executive vice president and CEO of its Africa Division, effective21 September.
Gordon will be responsible for delivering a profitable organic growth plan for the telco’s African operations and lead a newly-created executive committee tasked with overseeing and driving business on the continent, according to a company statement. She will report to group CEO Mauricio Ramos.
Millicon is present in six African markets: Tanzania, Ghana, DRC, Senegal, Rwanda and Chad.
Cynthia joins Millicom, which focuses on emerging markets in Latin America as well as Africa, from Ooredoo, where she has served as group chief commercial officer since January 2012. She will remain on the board of commissioners of Ooredoo’s Indonesian unit Indosat.
Before that, she was VP of partnerships and emerging markets for French incumbent Orange, which has a large footprint in Africa. Between 2007 and 2009, she was group chief commercial officer of Russia’s largest mobile operator MTS.
In her two decade-plus telecoms careers, she has also worked for BT, THUS in the UK and AT&T’s ACC International.
Ramos said he believes that, under Gordon’s leadership, the African business will be well placed to deliver organic growth.
“She knows the telecoms industry inside-out and will bring her commercial acumen to support the delivery of our strategy to build and grow our digital services in Africa,” he said.
Millicom claims to serve 28 million customers across its six African markets, which generated revenues of US$1bn – 16% of the group’s total – in 2014. For Q2 2015, the company reported overall revenue growth in Africa of 15.3%.
