Gustav Smit, the founding CEO of Dark Fibre Africa (DFA), has announced he intends to step down at the end of June after nine years at the helm of the fast-growing open-access fibre infrastructure provider.
“Gustav has decided that the DFA foundation that was built is extremely strong now and that the time has come to retire,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
DFA chief financial officer Thinus Mulder will take the reins from Smit on 1 July. Mulder has been with DFA for the past eight years.
The company, which counts Remgro among its principal shareholders, started rolling out its network in South African cities in October 2007. Today, it has more than 9 000km of fibre nationwide and employs over 400 people.
Smit, who holds a BCom Accounting degree from the University of Pretoria and a BCompt (Hons) degree from Unisa, previously held a consulting position at DFA shareholder CIV Holdings. He also held the position of senior auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers until 1993. — © 2016 NewsCentral Media