Globacom has a new chief executive officer, Ahmad Farroukh, people with direct knowledge of the matter have told BusinessDay.
The former MTN Nigeria boss appointment is part of the telco’s effort to align with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) ‘s move to strengthen corporate governance in the telecoms industry.
Farroukh is expected to lead an overhaul of the telco, which is also constituting a board. He began his career in 1995 as CEO of Investcom Group in Lebanon, later acquired by MTN Group.
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In 1999, he was managing director of MTN Ghana and regional director for West Africa under Investcom, an MTN subsidiary. He then served as CEO of MTN Nigeria from 2006 to 2010 and was appointed CEO of MTN South Africa in 2014. In 2015, he became CEO of Mobily, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest telecom operator, where he served until 2017. He joined Smile Communications Nigeria Limited in 2019 as Group CEO until his Globacom appointment.
Farroukh has a Master’s in Business Administration and Accounting from the Lebanese American University and is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) from New York, USA.
The telco’s operational shift follows a significant drop in its subscriber base, which fell by 69.20 percent in six months to 19.15 million in September from 62.19 million in March after a regulatory audit of the industry’s subscriber base revealed discrepancies.
“One Mobile Network Operator was found to have incorrectly reported around 40 million subscribers as active, despite the absence of any revenue-generating activity over a 90-day period,” a NCC document seen by BusinessDay read.
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