MTN board members keen to see women vying for CEO
MTN board members want to see women among the candidates being considered to take over as head of MTN South Africa following the sudden resignation of CEO Ahmad Farroukh this week.
Farroukh’s departure, announced on Monday, after Business Times reported last Sunday that he was on the way out, has sent the company scrambling for a replacement, although officially MTN is yet to confirm that it has initiated a recruitment process.
It is also unclear whether an acting CEO has been identified and will be appointed at month-end, when Farroukh’s resignation takes effect.
But insiders say several names have been mooted to head the troubled South African unit permanently. The successful candidate would be the third CEO in two years at MTN SA.
Philisiwe Sibiya, 38, the CEO of MTN Cameroon, and Mteto Nyati, MTN group chief enterprise officer, are potential candidates who insiders have
PROSPECTS: Philisiwe Sibiya and Mteto Nyati are tipped as CEO candidates identified as in the running for the top job. Globally, the top positions in the telecommunications industry remain male-dominated.
Chris Maroleng, MTN Group spokesman, would not comment on speculation about Sibiya and Nyati or on the recruitment process. “Right now, we are in a closed period . . . We are not going to respond at this stage.”
However, Dawn Marole, an independent nonexecutive director, confirmed that Sibiya, a former chief financial officer of MTN South Africa and MTN group finance executive, was being groomed for top leadership. “That is the reason she was deployed to Cameroon, to give her that rotational skill and look at a different country. She needed to expand her skills set. Philisiwe is a very smart woman and competent . . . She is one of the key stars within the group.”
But Marole would not confirm whether Sibiya was on the list of candidates for MTN South Africa. “It is unfair for you to ask me if she is being considered. I cannot answer and say: ‘Yes, she is.’ ”
Nyati is a former IBM and Microsoft executive. He joined MTN in October last year.
The board will be scrutinising the candidate list. “If there are no women we could find, then we want an explanation why we couldn’t find those women and what else do we have to do for the future,” Marole said. “It’s an issue that we take seriously at MTN, especially us women on the board.”
She said there was a “talent pool of women” being prepared for senior positions. At large operations such as that in South Africa, the ideal candidate had to understand the business and have the capacity to execute strategy. “It’s a position where you need to step in and run, not step in and learn.”
Analysts who track its shares said MTN was likely to appoint an internal candidate to avoid a difficult and timeconsuming external search.
Allan Bothma, investment analyst at Afena Capital, said an ideal candidate would have to be “commercially minded, ideally with a telecommunications background, with experience working in a competitive market”.
Sifiso Dabengwa, MTN Group CEO, said on Monday that Farroukh’s resignation was “unavoidable for personal and family reasons”.
Farroukh had found favour with some in the investment community. Philip Short, an Old Mutual Equities analyst, said: “He was effective in the Nigerian and West African markets. He was also street-smart.”
Although the Lebanese national had improved the distribution channel and cut costs at MTN South Africa since he was appointed in August, MTN had battled to resolve a strike over bonuses and wages that has lasted more than a month.