{"id":39048,"date":"2013-05-31T07:09:37","date_gmt":"2013-05-31T05:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=39048"},"modified":"2013-05-31T09:04:08","modified_gmt":"2013-05-31T07:04:08","slug":"analysts-question-mtn-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/39048\/analysts-question-mtn-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysts question MTN leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the appointment of former\u00a0MTN Group<\/a>\u00a0CEO,\u00a0Phuthuma Nhleko,<\/a> as chairman of the mobile operator earlier this week has been widely approved by analysts, questions have been raised over potential leadership lines becoming blurred.<\/p>\n

Spiwe Chireka<\/a>, program manager of Telecoms at the IDC<\/a>, told BusinessTech that, while Nhleko\u2019s appointment is a positive one for the group – given his experience in building the company to its current size and market cap of R335 billion – it may well be difficult for him to avoid getting into the everyday operations of the group.<\/p>\n

Nhleko stepped down as CEO of MTN Group at the end of March 2011, having been appointed in 2002, with\u00a0Sifiso Dabengwa<\/a>\u00a0taking over his role.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a possibility that the lines could become blurred between chairman and CEO,\u201d Chireka said, noting that in many instances, chairmen are appointed with very little knowledge about the industry in which a particular company operates in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be difficult to for the chairman to decide where his role stops, and what the CEO does as he (Nhleko) has basically built the company up to what it is today. However, this move is more positive than it is negative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nadim Mohamed<\/a>, investment analyst and partner at First Avenue Investment Management<\/a>, said that Nhleko is no stranger to being a board member only, since his resignation from MTN.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Nhleko is a good appointment and has extensive experience in telecoms within African and emerging markets.\u00a0I think he will settle well into the chairman role as he has been on a few boards such as Anglo American over the past two years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nhleko\u2019s appointment as chairman of the company was confirmed at MTN\u2019s\u00a0annual general meeting on Tuesday (28 May), and follows the official resignation of\u00a0Cyril Ramaphosa<\/a>\u00a0in March.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the board\u00b4s\u00a0belief that Mr Nhleko\u00b4s previous association with MTN and his experience in the\u00a0telecommunications industry will benefit the group,\u201d MTN said in a statement on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, MTN<\/a> announced that it has appointed former chief financial officer,\u00a0Zunaid Bulbulia<\/a>\u00a0as CEO for the group\u2019s South African operations.<\/p>\n

Bulbulia will replace former MD,\u00a0Karel Pienaar<\/a>, who will now function as the MTN Group chief strategy officer.<\/p>\n

Shares in MTN Group moved 1.23% or R2.17 higher on the JSE Thursday, to R178.17.<\/p>\n

More on MTN<\/h3>\n

Phuthuma Nhleko rejoins MTN<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN SA gets new CEO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The appointment of former MTN Group CEO, Phuthuma Nhleko as chairman of the mobile operator has been widely approved by analysts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":38827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,625,1120,3757,2181,1890,445,3588],"class_list":["post-39048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-idc","tag-mtn-group","tag-nadim-mohamed","tag-phuthuma-nhleko","tag-sifiso-dabengwa","tag-spiwe-chireka","tag-zunaid-bulbulia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39048"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39052,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39048\/revisions\/39052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}