RIYADH – Mobily (Etihad Etisalat), a telecom operator in Saudi Arabia, announced Sunday the appointment of Ahmad Farroukh as its new chief executive officer. Farroukh brings over thirty years international business experience across Middle East, Africa, North America and Europe to his new role at Mobily. Most recently he was CEO of MTN South Africa and CEO of MTN Nigeria. Prior to his last appointment he was MTN Group Chief Operating Executive responsible for covering its operations. In the same context, Mobily also announced the appointment of Kais Ben Hamida as the chief financial officer. Kais holds a wide experience with 20 years of international business and finance experience across Middle East, North America and Europe. After his early start in banking, he spent significant part of his career in telecom sector at the Orange Group holding several leadership positions related to M&A, project financing, business development and business monitoring, before taking in 2011 his last role as Mobinil CFO in Egypt. Commenting on the appointments, Khalifa Al Shamsi, Managing Director, Mobily, said: “We have appointed an experienced and dedicated telecom and financial veterans. The new appointed calibers have proven track-record of success in managing large businesses in complex and challenging environments. We trust that their leadership and management experience will provide Mobily with the impetus to build on its strong foundations and deliver future growth and success.” Mobily has completed recently its executive team to have more focus on the future and strategic growth areas within the organization. Mobily now have a very strong executive team with Ismail AlGhamdi as the Chief Business Officer and Maziad Alharbi as the Chief Technology Officer. Farroukh began his career in 1983 as the finance manager for Mediterranean Investor Group. By the early 1990s he focused on audit roles, first as an Audit Supervisor for KPMG, New York and then for Deloitte Touché, Saudi Arabia, before, in 1996, joining Investcom Holding Group as its group finance controller. He then moved to Africa joining Scancom (Investcom Holding Group) in Ghana as managing director and regional manager for its West Africa operations. Following Investcom's acquisition by MTN Group, he was appointed as CEO MTN Nigeria, which, under his leadership, grew to 40 million subscribers with EBIDTA margins of 62%. This success propelled him to the role of vice president, West and Central Africa and later Group COO at MTN. In 2014 he was appointed as CEO for MTN South Africa. – SG
