Wim Vanhelleputte, who formerly served as the CEO of MTN Uganda, has been given the responsibility of leading Safaricom‘s operations in Ethiopia.
His appointment will become effective in September 2023, at which time he will succeed Anwar Soussa, who has served in this capacity for the previous two years.
After working in the telecoms business across numerous markets in sub-Saharan Africa for over 25 years, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa voiced his trust in Vanhelleputte, adding that Wim provides considerable leadership experience and strong industry expertise. Ndegwa also stated that Vanhelleputte will be an asset to the company.
Before taking on his current position, Vanhelleputte had been working since August 2022 as the operations executive for West and Central Africa for the MTN Group. Additionally, from 2016 until 2022, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of MTN Uganda. He was succeeded in that role by Sylvia Mulinge, who had previously held the post of Head of Consumer Business at Safaricom Kenya.
The revitalization of Safaricom Ethiopia’s business operations will be Vanhelleputte’s primary duty. Safaricom Ethiopia just recently received a licence to offer mobile money services; therefore, this is an exciting time for the company. Vanhelleputte has held a number of important positions over the course of his career, including those of CEO at Sentel GSM in Senegal, managing director of TchadMobile in Chad, and general manager at Telcel Gabon, to name just a few of these roles. As a result, he has collected a wealth of knowledge in the field of telecommunications.
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Statement from Safaricom
A statement from Safaricom Kenya read, “We are pleased to announce the appointment of Wim Vanhelleputte as the chief executive officer of Safaricom Ethiopia effective 1st September 2023. Wim brings extensive leadership experience and deep industry knowledge, having worked in the telecommunications industry across multiple markets in sub-Saharan Africa for over 25 years. He joins Safaricom Ethiopia from MTN Group, where he was the operations executive—markets since August 2022, and he was responsible for the performance and governance of four operating companies in West and Central Africa.”
“As Wim joins us, we have planned for a seamless transition to ensure that we maintain our momentum so far in delivering our vision to transform lives through a digital future for all Ethiopians,” concluded Safaricom.
About Safaricom
Safaricom PLC is a publicly traded mobile network operator in Kenya. Its headquarters are located in Nairobi, Kenya, at the Safaricom House. It is the most important provider of telecommunications services in Kenya and is consistently ranked among the most lucrative businesses in the East and Central Africa region.
Safaricom PLC (Safaricom) is a company that only does business in Kenya and has its headquarters in Safaricom House in Nairobi. The company is extremely patriotic about being a Kenyan brand.
The company provides a variety of services, including mobile phone, mobile money transfer, consumer electronics, online commerce, cloud computing, data, music streaming, and fibre optics. It is best famous for being the birthplace of M-PESA, a mobile banking service that is based on SMS.
Customers will be able to take advantage of affordable browsing rates while roaming in countries such as South Africa, China, the Netherlands, Ghana, and Congo due to data roaming bundles. Countries included in this group are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Qatar, Romania, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, and Uganda.
At this time, leading telecommunications provider Safaricom does not place any restrictions on the number of lines a client can register using their identity card; however, Safaricom has placed a limit of two on the number of M-Pesa lines that can be registered using the same ID.
In terms of phone services, Safaricom received a score of 360 out of 400, and in terms of data services, they received a score of 472 out of 600. Umlaut discovered that Safaricom was the only mobile operator to deliver voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) services across the country, including in rural regions. This enabled Safaricom to achieve the best call set-up time of any operator.