In an internal memo sent to staff, William Mzimba has resigned as CEO of Vodacom Business, a subsidiary of JSE-listed Vodacom Group, and will be leaving the company at the end of September 2023.
After five impactful years as Chief Officer of Vodacom Business, William Mzimba will be retiring from Vodacom at the end of September 2023.
Internal Memo
Mzimba joined Vodacom five years ago as chief officer of Vodacom Business to replace Vuyani Jarana. Internally at Vodacom, no one gave him a chance to succeed. They whispered that this man from Accenture couldn’t repeat the great feat achieved by Jarana at Vodacom.
In the past five years, Vodacom, Mzimba has delivered enormous value at the Vodafone-owned mobile phone company. He ensured that Vodacom Business continued to fire on all cylinders and elevated the business unit to the next level.
Sources said that Mzimba is likely to either join former Altron’s CEO Mteto Nyati at his new company BSG (Business Systems Group) or MTN. Last November, Nyati bought a 40% stake in business technology consulting firm BSG for an undisclosed sum and will become the company’s executive chairman.
As a head of the business unit, Mzimba led a team that ensured Vodacom acquire IoT.nxt, one of South Africa’s innovative IoT startups that are expanding globally and a company to watch in the next few years. The acquisition will significantly accelerate its IoT strategy and transform its dedicated IoT business unit.
He also enabled Vodacom to go big on Cloud and has been instrumental in helping Vodacom clinch a deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Vodacom will become both a customer of AWS and a reseller of AWS services across Africa. The partnership is a “game-changer” because it takes Vodacom beyond being just a big seller of connectivity.
In short, Vodacom leveraging AWS’ highly scalable and available cloud platform will deliver the innovative product-led transition to a full Cloud solution offering. Thanks to Mzimba’s leadership and foresight Vodacom seems likely to become the biggest IoT and cloud services enabler and provider in Africa.
