Former Vodacom exec and South African Airways (SAA) CEO Vuyani Jarana has joined Mobax, an investment and holdings company that offers engineering, project and technical services to telecommunication network operators and corporate clients in Africa.
In a statement, Mobax says as SA moves ahead to becoming a major player in the gig economy, a lot of challenges need to be addressed when it comes to the telecommunications industry that will enable this vision and put the country on the global map.
It says Mobax has signalled its intention to become a major role-player in the movement towards addressing these challenges as Jarana joins as shareholder and the group chairperson to realise this vision.
The company says Jarana will bring strong industry experience to the table, having spent many years in strategic C-level positions at Vodacom (COO and chief officer of the Enterprise Business Unit) and SAA (group CEO).
After leaving Vodacom Business, Jarana was appointed SAA CEO in November 2017 and had the challenging task of bringing back the airline to financial health.
However, he tendered his resignation from the struggling airline in 2019.
Says Jarana: “As African economies continue to digitise and transform themselves into ‘gig economies’, the need to build the underlying infrastructure to meet the demands of citizens, businesses and government will increase multi-fold.
“Access to capabilities of a large-scale ICT infrastructure and services company like Mobax will not only ensure speed of rollout and quality of service, but should be able to aggregate the overall industry infrastructure economics to unlock true value to participating telco clients.”
Fred Watkins, Mobax CEO, says the company is in the process of rebranding so that it will be able to realise the vision Jarana hopes to achieve.
“Mobax is an African carrier-neutral mobile infrastructure build and maintenance company. We understand that there is a lot of expectation in the region when it comes to job creation and skills development.
“Mobax is embracing this by bringing key suppliers that are small, medium and micro enterprises that they can also contribute to the country’s economic development,” says Watkins.
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