There is a scene in Marvel Comics Avengers Infinity War when Iron Man and meets the Guardians of the Galaxy for the first time and Star lord and Iron ask each other questions. If a parody of the same scene had to rewritten, the line of questioning of Liquid Telecom Zambia’s newly appointed CEO would be “Who is Susan?”, “Where is Susan From?”, “What is Susan?”
In an industry dominated by men folk, Susan Mulikita arrives in the Telcom industry at a time when competition is rift and regulation maturing.
Susan brings an interesting background to the game. She is lawyer by profession. According to her linkedIn profile, she is an alumni of a catholic high school, with a Law degree from UNZA, and a Masters of Law from Buckingamshire University. But that’s not all, her masters is actually in ICT Law.
With a background that has the hallmarks of a barrister or solicitor, the question from “Star lord” would still be “What is Susan”?
The answer lies in the 16 years she spent at the ICT Authority of Zambia in the Markets, Competition and Licensing fields. Having risen to Director, she eventually got the nod for the Director Legal and Regulatory for the same institution. This is why she was no doubt a prime candidate for the Airtel Regulatory Director job in 2012.
Till this moment, Susan exhibits immense knowledge in the regulatory framework around the Telcom and ICT industries. No doubt she had a front row seat in forming the regulation around the sector she now rides in as player in the game.
The Liquid job comes at a pivotal moment for Susan as she takes over the company that recently saw the final 50% shares being purchased from CEC Zambia Plc. According to Liquid Telcom Group CEO, the group of companies sees the acquisition as part of its broader strategy to expand the footprint of the Liquid network and broaden their award-winning product offering.
Susan takes over a “Liquid” company that will focus on wholesale, enterprise and retail products across Zambia. For example, they currently offer cloud based services such as Microsoft Office 365 and Azure Stack which according to the company are now being hosted locally for the first time.
In addition, Susan will be playing catch up in the fibre space (chasing Fibrecom Limited which is currently leader in infrastructure on fibre backbone) as the company intends to continue to invest in its fibre optic back bone in Zambia. Part of the strategy will also include connecting Zambia to Liquid Telcom’s “One Africa” broadband network in a bid to create a backbone that will stretch from Cape to Cairo.
With their services license being upgraded to support voice over IP (their voice license already allows them to do traditional voice), Susan’s management team will no doubt be exploiting the reserve capacity that their fibre optic metropolitan network that is currently allowing it to provide 4G LTE in all the 10 provinces of Zambia.
Susan’s strength in regulation will no doubt inspire her management style as she will no doubt seek to exploit the opportunities this particular space offers. Furthermore, her understanding of her near rival in the broadband space will ensure that her management team use her in-depth knowledge of extant players to seek out value in a competitive industry.