Airtel rejig: Faria new CEO of Africa, Manoj Kohli to return to India

New Delhi:In a senior level rejig, BhartiAirtel today appointed Christian de Faria as the new CEO forAfrican operations while Manoj Kohli, MD and CEO(International) will relocate to India.

The appointment will be effective January 1, 2014.Kohli, who is in-charge of Africa, Bangladesh and SriLanka operations, is based in Airtel's Africa headquarters inNairobi.

[caption id="attachment_1067095" align="alignleft" width="380"] Manoj Kohli. Agencies[/caption]

Faria will join Airtel Africa on September 16, 2013 andreport to Kohli. He will immediately take charge of Anglophoneoperations and commence an orientation encompassing AirtelAfrica functions, Francophone and Nigeria regions, the companysaid in a statement.

"Manoj has successfully embedded our business model andthe Airtel brand in Africa, and will now provide governanceoversight to the international operations and be involved withthe group strategic matters," Bharti Airtel Chairman SunilBharti Mittal said.

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Kohli will look into the strategic issues such as in-market consolidation, global partnerships and regulatoryaspects along with leading the company's internationaloperations.

"While continuing to lead Airtel's internationaloperations...Manoj would also lead strategic issues such asin-market consolidation via M&A, key matters relating totowerco, global partnerships, global sourcing from keypartners and strategic regulatory aspects," Airtel said.

Kohli will continue his position on the boards of BhartiAirtel International Netherlands BV and Airtel Networks Ltd,Nigeria.Faria was associated with MTN for the last seven years,where he held senior leadership positions including ExecutiveVice President and Group Commercial Officer.

While announcing the company's results recently, Kohlisaid that making African operations profitable will takemore time due to slowdown in the economy."The market has seen a lower growth than we expected andthat's why those targets could not be achieved but we aredetermined and we will achieve them but I really can't sharethe timeframe now," Kohli had said.

Initially, the company had said that it expected to touchUSD 5 billion in revenues by May, 2013. As per the April-Junequarter results this fiscal, African operations had a totalrevenue of USD 1.06 billion.Airtel provides services in 17 African countries.

PTI