Johannesburg - MTN
Group senior executive Stephen Van Coller said his role has been changed to
head of digital services at Africa’s biggest wireless operator, seven months
after he joined the company as head of strategy.
The former
investment banking chief at Barclays Africa Group has been asked to examine
ways to boost profit from cellphone data use, he said in an interview at the
World Economic Forum on Africa on Friday. One task is to hold talks with
Naspers’s unit Multichoice about hosting TV entertainment on smartphones, he
said.
“I don’t just
want to give you a phone, I want to give you a phone with some services and
products on it,” he said at the event in Durban, South Africa. “Just like in
banking where you almost never go into the bank anymore, I want customers to do
everything from their phone.”
In an email to
employees seen by Bloomberg, MTN CEO Rob Shuter said he had identified digital
services as an area that needs to be improved and had consequently assigned the
role to Van Coller. Chief Operating Officer Jens Schulte-Bockum, who joined
from Vodafone Group in January, will take over the role of strategy chief,
according to the email. Van Coller retains his position in charge of mergers
and acquisitions.
An MTN spokesman
didn’t immediately respond to an email and phone call seeking comment.
Read also: MTN wants financial deals
The role change
comes as Shuter gets stuck into the task of reviving Johannesburg-based MTN
after a $1 billion fine in Nigeria and sluggish growth led to a first ever
annual loss in 2016. He was hired by Chairman Phuthuma Nhleko alongside Van
Coller, Schulte-Bockum and other senior executives in a management shake-up. On
Wednesday, Shuter used his first quarterly report since his arrival in March to
commit to major investments in MTN’s largest markets of Nigeria, South Africa
and Iran.
Van Coller’s
move “makes sense,” Peter Takaendesa, an analyst at Mergence Investment
Managers, said by on phone from Cape Town: as most of those services will be
similar to financial services, which is where he has the experience and
background in.”
MTN shares fell
1.6 percent to R117.05 rand as of 4:33 p.m. in Johannesburg on Friday, valuing
the company at R220 billion.