Ahmad Farroukh, board member, head of operations at Smile

Smile Telecoms Holdings Ltd, a Pan-African telecommunications group with operations in Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has announced the appointment of Ahmad Farroukh to its Board as Executive Director, Operations. This appointment is effective May 1 2017.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. He has 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).Most recently, the new Board member served as CEO of Mobily, Saudi Arabia’s second largest telecommunications operator. Given the extent of the opportunity and the significance to Smile, Ahmad will spend the majority of his executive time in Nigeria.In explaining its choice of Faroukh, Smile chief, Irene Charnley has this to say: “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.”“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, 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.