A boy from Uttar Pradesh Rahul De has been appointed as marketing head of MTN – Africa’s biggest multinational mobile telephone network – and would oversee the operation from Nigeria.

MTN Group’s President and CEO Raymond Sifiso Ndlovu Dabengwa made this announcement. He said that Rahul De would be the Chief Marketing Officer and would head the operation from Nigeria.

He is the first Indian to have been appointed at this level. Before shifting his base to Nigeria De was heading MTN’s marketing division in Ghana. “The new assignment would be a real challenge as MTN in Nigeria has been facing pressure in the market for some time now. Half yearly results of the group show that the Nigerian operation has not grown,” De communicated to The Pioneer through email..

Nigeria market is the largest for MTN in terms of subscribers. At 61 million subscribers and revenue of almost 4 billion dollars yearly it does 30 per cent of MTN group revenues.

MTN is the largest telecom operator in Africa with around 12 Billion dollars revenue and 231 million subscribers. It has operations spread across 22 countries in Africa and Middle east

Rahul has been widely recognised in MTN as having turned around its Ghana operations where worked for four years. “MTN Ghana has become the ‘data network of choice’, and has become a pioneer in ‘mobile money initiatives’. Having customers always at the heart of things the company has grown exponentially though their has been serious pressure due to depreciation of local currency (cedis) to dollars,” De said

“My priority would be to create a more youth centric organization, data network of choice, customer experience management and deliver on all brand promises,” De said.

De belongs to Allahabad. He did his schooling from B SC from Allahabad and did research on international marketing trade.

Prior to his assignment Rahul has held a number of senior roles in Reliance, Aircel, Maxis (Malaysia)

source: http://www.dailypioneer.com / The Pioneer / Home> State edition> Lucknow / Pioneer News Service, Lucknow / Thursday – August 13th, 2015)