{"id":869463,"date":"2026-08-10T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=869463"},"modified":"2026-08-07T16:29:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:29:37","slug":"the-man-who-wanted-to-be-an-astronaut-and-now-makes-r272000-a-day-as-a-tech-ceo-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/869463\/the-man-who-wanted-to-be-an-astronaut-and-now-makes-r272000-a-day-as-a-tech-ceo-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The man who wanted to be an astronaut and now makes R272,000 a day as a tech CEO in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ralph Mupita grew up wanting to become an astronaut, became a civil engineer, and then went on to become the CEO of MTN, the second-largest mobile telephone network in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mupita was born in Zimbabwe, where he grew up until he finished high school. After matriculating, he moved to South Africa to complete his tertiary education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Cape Town (UCT). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also went on to study at Harvard University in the Graduate Management Program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mupita started his career as a staff civil engineer at Haw and Inglis Civil Engineering in Cape Town, where he worked for over three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before joining MTN as its CEO, Ralph Mupita served as CEO of Old Mutual Markets from 2012 to 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to joining MTN, Mupita oversaw operations in 19 countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under his leadership, the business served 19 million customers and managed approximately R1 trillion in assets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRalph Mupita is a seasoned business leader with a career spanning engineering, financial services and telecommunications across emerging markets,\u201d said MTN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has served as Group President and Chief Executive Officer of MTN Group since September 2020, having previously been Group Chief Financial Officer from April 2017.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt MTN, Ralph has driven initiatives that strengthened the Group\u2019s capital position, advanced portfolio optimisation and expanded local participation through public listings in Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda,\u201d said MTN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mupita is a member of several boards within the MTN ecosystem, which includes MTN South Africa, MTN Nigeria, and MTN Group Fintech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He actively participates in global industry leadership, serving as the Deputy Chair of the GSMA and as a Commissioner on the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita received a total remuneration of R99.313 million for the 2025 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This represents a 53.4% increase from his 2024 package of R64.751 million, driven largely by higher short-term incentives and the vesting of long-term incentives following the company’s return to profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTN’s first quarter results <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

MTN has significantly improved its financial performance, bouncing back from a loss of nearly R11 billion in 2024 to a profit of over R27 billion in 2025, while also surpassing the 300 million customer milestone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, MTN reported a loss of R10.9 billion, primarily due to the devaluation of the Naira in its largest market, Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, 2025 proved to be a much stronger year for the company, with a profit of R27.4 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of this profit, R20 billion was attributable to the company’s equity holders, while the remainder was allocated to non-controlling interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, basic earnings per share saw a remarkable increase of 314.5%, reaching 1,113 cents, and reported headline earnings surged by 1,058% to 1,274 cents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOperationally, we delivered strong growth in earnings, free cash flow and improved returns,\u201d said Group CEO and President Ralph Mupita.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe performance was underpinned by improved macroeconomic conditions in key markets and driven by strong operational execution and disciplined capital allocation,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2025, the group’s service revenue increased by 22.7% to R218.5 billion, driven by remarkable growth of 54.9% in MTN Nigeria and 35.9% in MTN Ghana, both on a constant currency basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTN South Africa experienced a modest overall service revenue growth of 2.0%, primarily due to competitive pressures in the prepaid segment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group also maintained strong performance in other markets, including MTN Uganda, MTN Cameroon, MTN C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, and MTN Zambia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These results were bolstered by continued investment in networks and platforms, with the group investing R38.5 billion over the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It connected 16.3 million new customers to its networks, raising its total base to 307 million. The number of active data customers increased by 9.4% to reach 172.6 million.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ralph grew up wanting to become an astronaut, but became a civil engineer before going on to become the CEO of the second-largest mobile telephone network in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":672175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2086830186117345702","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2172260200261046","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18045895238803457","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[28,21748],"class_list":["post-869463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-mtn","tag-ralph-mupita"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869463","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\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869463"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":869541,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869463\/revisions\/869541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}