Telkom appoints new chairman

By Candice Jones for Telkom

Johannesburg, 15 Sep 2009

Telkom has appointed its new chairman, Jeff Molobela, who will replace Shirley Lue Arnold, who will retire.

The company announced the appointment late last night, following last week's Cabinet approval of Molobela. He will become a non-executive director on the Telkom board, and his chairmanship will begin in November.

The Department of Communications has the right to appoint Telkom's chairman, having 39.8% ownership of the company. The appointment must then be approved by Cabinet. Molobela's approval came in on Friday last week.

Arnold was appointed in the same way in October 2006, following the early departure of Nomazizi Mtshotshisa. She was appointed to a three-year contract, where Molobela has only been approved to hold the position for a year.

“Telkom is extremely grateful to Mrs Arnold and wishes to thank and acknowledge her for her leadership, dedication, contribution and service to the Telkom Group,” it says.

The company says she supervised several organisational changes, including the Vodacom transaction, the African expansion and the more recent group restructure.

“Telkom wishes Mrs Arnold every success in the future and welcomes Mr Molobela to the board,” it adds.

Molobela has experience in financial services, has served on numerous company boards and board committees, and consulted to Denel and Armscor.

“In 2007, Mr Molobela was involved in the development and implementation of a nationwide WiFi telecoms project and was responsible for developing a business plan for a WiMax roll-out plan for submission to ICASA,” it adds.

Molobela has served on the boards of Africon Engineering, Transnet, Primegro, CBS Properties, Growthpoint Properties and Decillion. He is still a member of the board of Concorde Foundry Vereeniging; N3TC, a toll road concession company responsible for parts of the N3; and Cashbuild, a building material retailer.