Smile telecoms appoints new board member to lead business operations

Smile, a Pan-African telecommunications group recently announced the appointment of Ahmad Farroukh to its Board to head its business operations as the Executive Director of operations.

The news came as no shock to IT industry watchers as Ahmad is an experienced telecoms executive with a distinguished record of commercial success, extensive experience working in Africa and an impressive ability to drive strategy and profitability in accordance with international standards, having held executive management positions at Investcom Holdings and the MTN Group, including being CEO of MTN Nigeria for five years, CEO of MTN South Africa and MTN Group Chief Operating Executive (responsible for 19 countries).

On why they needed to appoint a new head of operations, Irene Charnley, Smile Group’s Chief Executive Officer said; “The Africa telecoms market is as dynamic as it is challenging, and Ahmad Farroukh is perfectly suited to lead Smile’s next exciting phase of growth, as we have transitioned from a spectrum rich start-up to the most reliable data gigabyte factory in Sub-Sahara Africa.”

According to Ahmad Farroukh, “Africa is experiencing explosive data growth, and I am honoured to have the opportunity to lead the operations of the continent’s best 4G LTE network at this exciting time.”

“It has also been a revelation after over 20 years in the industry to witness the power and versatility of Smile’s proprietary technology applications and billing platform, which was developed in-house and provides a huge competitive and cost advantage,” said Ahmad.

Smile, which was founded in 2007, is a Mauritius-based Pan-African telecommunications group with operations in Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa. The company is majority owned by Saudi-based, Al Nahla group. Smile has the largest sub-1 GHz 4G LTE commercial network in Africa, operating in the 800 MHz band, providing SuperFast and Reliable broadband services to its customers.

Smile was the first to launch VoLTE on its network and has continued with its innovation, having introduced SmileVoice, which is a free mobile app that enables customers with any Android or Apple handset (including those which are not VoLTE-enabled) to make voice calls over Smile’s 4G LTE networks.

Smile was also the first to introduce an unlimited offering, which enables voice and data in one bundle.

Jumoke Akiyode