Leadership change at Vodacom

Shameel Joosub is taking over as Vodacom Group chief executive officer from Pieter Uys on 1 September 2012, heralding a new era for the mobile company.

Pieter Uys joined Vodacom in 1993, and appointed as managing director of Vodacom South Africa in 2001. Uys became the chief operating officer of Vodacom Group in 2004 and led the rollout of 3G services across its networks in Africa.

Uys was appointed Vodacom Group chief executive in 2008, taking over from Alan Knott-Craig – the current Cell C CEO. Uys led Vodacom’s debut listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, achieving a shareholder return of around 100% since listing.

In a recent CNBC interview, Uys explained that his leadership style was different from Knott-Craig at Vodacom, partly because of the fact that it is a larger company now, where more power needs to be delegated to other leaders in the company.

Uys said that he worked hard to instill a participative leadership in the company, giving freedom to other people in the company to make decisions and grow their ideas.

Uys said that he made many mistakes in his career, which included the Vodacom outage on 30 June 2011, adding that it is a way to learn and improve both as a company and as a person.

Speaking to BusinessTech, Uys would not say what his immediate plans are, but he did indicate that telecommunications is an integral part of South Africa’s economy and economic growth, which means that it is not really possible to get away from it.

Shameel Joosub taking over

Joosub joined Vodacom in 1994, and was appointed as the managing director of Vodacom South Africa and a director of the Vodacom board from 2000 until 2010 prior to his transfer to Vodafone Spain.

Joosub left Vodacom to take the position of CEO of Vodafone Spain on 1 April 2012.

Joosub holds a Bachelor of Accounting Science (Honours) from the University of South Africa and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia.

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