Former Telkom chief commercial officer Brian Armstrong has been appointed to the board of JSE-listed telecommunications company Huge Group as an independent nonexecutive director.

Huge Group said in a statement after markets closed on Monday that the appointment is part of a strategy to strengthen its board with leading industry experts. He joins Zunaid Bulbulia, the former MTN South Africa CEO and now Huge Group’s chief financial officer, on the board.

Huge also recently appointed Craig Lyons, a specialist in mergers & acquisitions and private equity, as a director. And last week, it appointed former Gold Fields and Aveng company secretary Karen Robinson as its new company secretary.

Before joining Telkom in 2010, Armstrong spent seven years at BT Group (formerly British Telecom), where he was vice president for the Middle East and Africa region.

Huge Group chairman Duarte Da Silva said in the statement: “We think that our fixed-wireless telephony service using the GSM standard is a perfect substitute for, if not better alternative to, Telkom’s fixed-line telephony service over copper infrastructure. We think that Dr Armstrong can be instrumental in fulfilling our vision, refining our strategy and fulfilling our growth aspirations for this service.”