The Vodacom Group has announced the appointment of Adv Oyama Mabandla as its new non-executive chairman.
The three-year contract is with effect from 1 January 2006 and Adv Mabandla will replace Vodacom`s chairman of six years, Wendy Luhabe.
"Vodacom is fortunate to secure the chairmanship of Adv Mabandla. He is a highly respected South African business leader and we look forward to benefiting from his strategic commercial experience," said Alan Knott-Craig, Group Chief Executive Officer.
Adv Mabandla is executive chairman of the Langa Group, a corporate investment company. He was acting chief executive officer of South African Airways until October 2004 after joining the airline as operational head of its legal department in 2000.
During the late 1990s Adv Mabandla was a merchant banker at Union Bank of Switzerland and worked in London and Johannesburg. He later joined the Johannesburg Bar and holds a BA in political science from the University of California and a Juris doctorate in corporate law from Columbia University.
Adv Mabandla had left South Africa in 1980 to go into exile and worked for the ANC in various capacities until 1988, before leaving for the United States to embark on his academic career.
Knott-Craig paid tribute to former chairman Luhabe. "She is the only chairman of Vodacom who has served two terms. During this time Vodacom expanded its African operations to Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique. Under her chairmanship Vodacom`s total African customer base grew from 3 million in 2000 to over 21 million by the end of 2005. It has been both a pleasure and an honour to work with Wendy Luhabe."
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