MTN Group has announced several major changes to its leadership team, including the departure of its respected chief operating officer, Jens Schulte-Bockum, who will leave when his contract expires in March.

Selorm Adadevoh, who joined MTN in 2018 as CEO of MTN Ghana, will succeed Schulte-Bockhum, but in the role of chief commercial officer, while Stephen Blewett, who rejoined the group in July, has been named as CEO of the Ghanaian operation.

“Having spent seven years at MTN, Jens has played a valuable role and made a significant contribution to the group over the duration of his tenure,” MTN said in a statement to shareholders on Wednesday.

“The company thanks Jens for the vital role he has played in the scaling of our core connectivity business across home, fibre, enterprise and network as a service. In more recent times, Jens has had the additional responsibilities for accelerating the group’s digital services platforms, in particular the Ayoba super app and the API marketplace capability Chenosis.”

Schulte-Bockum, who previously led Vodafone Germany as CEO, will continue to serve as a non-executive director on the boards of MTN South Africa, MTN Nigeria and Bayobab.

Before joining MTN five years ago, new group COO Adadevoh held senior positions in Digicel Group, including CEO, COO and global director for mobile financial services. Before that, he held various senior positions at Millicom/Tigo in Ghana.

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“As Jens concludes his fixed-term contract as group COO, we are pleased to be able to make strong internal appointments within the group to fill key roles,” said group CEO Ralph Mupita in the statement. “This is testament to our robust succession planning.” — © 2023 NewsCentral Media