When it comes to an arena that is close to perfect competition, Zambia’s telecommunication sector comes to mind. This week, Liquid Telecom unveiled a new CEO Mark Townsend who takes over from Susan Mulikita who exits the role after a year and 4 months (Susan Takes a ‘Liquid’ Job). Susan oversaw the transformation of what is now the Liquid Fibre and Liquid Data-On-The-Go from the legacy Hai Telecom business.
Mark is not a newcomer to the Zambian Telecoms industry. Bart Hofker CEO of rival MTN will be consulting his predecessor Charles Molapisi who worked with Mark as his Director of Enterprise Business at the MTN Zambia outfit. The new CEO has also held leadership roles at AfriConnect and Vodacom giving him the edge that is needed to steer the ship of Zambian edition of the leading communications solutions provider across 13 countries primarily in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa that serves mobile operators, carriers, enterprise, media and content companies and retail customers with high-speed, reliable connectivity, hosting and co-location and digital services.
What makes this appointment interesting is that the board is very clear on what Mark’s mandate is. “He will be directly responsible for the leadership and strategic management of Liquid Telecom’s business operations across Zambia”, read the press release that was released by the company on 14th of April 2020. Strategy appears to be the new CEO’s strength as he “lead the development of annual Enterprise business plan including departmental goals, strategies and objectives that would deliver shareholder value, based on rigorous environmental and competitor analysis and his former employer MTN Zambia’s imperatives”, according to his description of his role in his previous life on his LinkedIn profile.
The press release further stated that “Mark’s arrival coincides with the company’s next phase of growth – providing fast, reliable connectivity and digital services to more business and consumers across Zambia”. This is the Board’s signal to the market that they have brought in a CEO who will ‘deliver Zambia’ (Market Share growth). He has everything he needs to deliver no thanks to Susan. “In just over a year, she established Liquid Telecom Zambia as the country’s leading fibre network and mobile data solutions provider, while also building a strong and stable foundation for continued growth, including the successful integration and rebrand of our retail business, Hai”. All he has to do is contend with the changing business environment and the opportunities (and pitfalls) that come with the advent of COVID-19 in what many are now calling “the new world order”.
Mark must now face off with his ‘perfect competitors’ that include Sydney Mupeta CEO Zamtel who now has a business that is less telecommunications towers (and has been aggressively marketing fastest internet) as these are now under the mandate of Freelance Bwalya CEO Infratel who also has jurisdiction over Zambia’s most expansive fibre network, Apoorva Mehrotra CEO Airtel who has declared 4G across Zambia albeit giving up the crown of the titan of mobile telecommunications users per capita in Zambia (but is proud of operational efficiencies) to Bart Hofker CEO MTN. The 4th mobile telecommunications company, despite possessing an unused license will not be giving Mark sleepless nights.