MTN Appoints Rob Shuter As New CEO

Shuter, who will resume his new post mid next year, takes over from Phuthuma Nhleko‚ who stepped as chairman and CEO after the resignation of Sifiso Dabengwa in November.

This is coming less than two weeks after it agreed to a $1.7 billion fine to settle a dispute in Nigeria.

A statement issued by the telecommunications outfit confirming Shuter’s appointment read: “Rob‚ a South African national‚ is the current CEO of the European cluster at Vodafone Group and has extensive experience in telecoms and banking‚ having held senior management roles at Vodacom Group‚ Standard Bank and Nedbank prior to joining Vodafone Group.

“MTN is confident that Rob will bring experience and new insights to the chief executive role having had many years in the telecoms sector both in Africa and Europe as well as in banking where his expertise will help as MTN continues to develop its new business strategy.”

Shuter has been CEO of Vodafone Netherlands since April 2012 and in October 2015 his role was expanded to include other European countries.

MTN also announced that it had appointed Godfrey Motsa as vice-president for south and east Africa. Motsa will join the company on July 1.

“Godfrey joins [MTN] from Vodacom where he was chief officer for consumer business. He brings 10 years of experience of telecoms in the region to MTN,” the statement read.

The telecommunications firm is trying to overhaul its corporate governance standards while looking for new revenue streams as competition hits profit margins in its key markets.

The Nigerian fine, originally set at $5.2 billion, was imposed after MTN missed a deadline to cut off users with unregistered SIM cards.

The announcement of the original fine wiped a fifth off of MTN’s market value and led to the resignation of chief executive Sifiso Dabengwa.

Nigerian customers make up about 60m of MTN’s 232m subscribers and the country provided about a third of sales in the last financial year.

Phuthuma Nhleko, a former MTN chief executive who returned to the helm as executive chairman to deal with the Nigerian penalty, will return to his role as chairman when Mr Shuter takes over.