Airtel Africa elevates Christian De Faria; appoints new COO – Raghunath Mandava

Bharti Airtel has announced the elevation of Christian De Faria to the position of Executive Chairman of Airtel Africa. He was previously the Chief Executive Officer.

The indian based telecoms Operator also announced the appointment of Raghunath Mandava as the new Chief Operating Officer. He is currently the Director, Customer Experience India and South Asia. By this appointment, he will be relocating to relocating to Nairobi and will be responsible for the African commercial operations.

According to Bharti Airtel, In his new role, Defaria will continue to support the vision of Airtel Africa and lead all matters relating to legal, regulatory affairs, shareholders as well as mergers and acquisitions. The company maintained that these top level changes are aimed at faster decision making and speed to market. The company also adds that

Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Airtel said, “Christian has done an excellent job by streamlining the operations, strengthening the leadership teams across Africa while enhancing the image of Airtel brand across Africa. We believe we have a strong platform to accelerate our journey towards profitability and market leadership and the new cluster based organization design will provide an enabling environment to the teams.”

Bharti also unveiled a a new cluster-based organisation design, wherein 15 African countries will now be classified into eight clusters with all cluster heads reporting to Raghunath.

Cluster 1
Nigeria and Ghana will now form one cluster under the leadership of Segun Ogunsanya. He will continue to be the MD for Nigeria while Lucy Quist, MD for Ghana will report into him.

Cluster 2
Wim Vanhelleputte will take responsibility for DRC and Congo Brazzaville. In addition to being MD for DRC, Wim will also have Gerard Lokossou – MD Congo Brazzaville reporting into him.

Cluster 3
Alain Kahasha will oversee 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 Rwanda reporting into him.

Cluster 6
Peter Correia now 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 for Niger, will report into Anwar.

Cluster 8
Kenya OpCo will continue to be led by Adil Elyoussefi as MD.