Cell C appoints Badenhorst
Cell C has appointed Darius Badenhorst as its chief growth officer as one of the last pieces to an extensive leadership shakeup at SA’s fourth-largest mobile operator.
The company said Badenhorst, whose appointment is effective from February, will be responsible for overseeing areas of business development, customer retention and customer relationship management “throughout the value chain and life cycle to further accelerate growth”.
Cell C said his track record and 14 years of experience in financial services and telecommunications will add value..
“His extensive background in quantitative analysis and financial engineering will be instrumental in navigating the evolving telecommunications landscape,” it said.
Cell C’s leadership has undergone a big shake-up in the last year.
CEO Jorge Mendes left Vodacom a year ago, after 23 years, taking over at Cell C in June after the sudden exit of Douglas Craigie Stevenson in March.
Mendes’ entry at Cell C was soon followed by the exit of Lerato Pule as CFO after less than a year on the job. Pule, a qualified chartered accountant and former CFO of Telkom’s SME business, replaced former Cell C CFO Zaf Mahomed at the start of September 2022. Pule was recently appointed CFO at Liquid Intelligent Technologies’ SA business.
Former MTN SA CEO Godfrey Motsa and Maya Makanjee,
the former group chief officer for corporate affairs at Vodacom, recently joined the Cell C board as the operator looks to push its growth and steady investor confidence.
Since then the company has also made appointments in growth, retentions, operations and strategy.
Mendes, who told the media on Tuesday that Cell C is looking to take the number three place from Telkom, said he was excited about their latest hire.
“We are very excited to welcome Darius Badenhorst as our new chief growth officer. His outstanding achievements, innovative mindset, and technical acumen make him an asset to our team. With him on board, we are well positioned to execute our growth strategy and deliver exceptional services to our customers.”
Mendes said he is almost done with filling Cell C’s executive ranks. A key position left to fill is one heading up the operator’s enterprise business.
Unsurprisingly, Badenhorst joins Cell C from Vodacom. He spent a decade at SA’s largest cellphone company, holding a number of senior positions within the commercial and finance teams, most recently as managing executive for base growth, retentions and loyalty
He led the development of Vodacom’s Just 4 You personalisation platform, generating revenue growth for the group. Badenhorst also created platforms responsible for increasing customer engagement through the VodaBucks loyalty rewards programme.
Badenhorst holds a bachelor of science degree in actuarial science and financial mathematics, together with an honours degree in financial engineering and mathematics.
This comes as Cell C’s largest shareholder, Blue Label Telecoms, gets ready to take control of the mobile operator. The group has applied to SA’s telecom regulator to push its 49.53% stake to about 53%.
The group, run by brothers Mark and Brett Levy, completed the long-awaited recapitalisation of the troubled mobile company in September 2022. The mobile network operator has struggled to make a profit since it opened for business in 2001.
It had been laden with longterm debt of R8.7bn, prompting Blue Label and Lesaka Technologies (formerly Net1), which previously had a 15% stake, to write down their combined R7.5bn investment to nil. Four years after this writedown the prepaid specialist positively revalued the Cell C investment on its books to R962.5m.