Former Samsung South Africa mobile communications head Craige Fleischer has been named as chief sales and marketing officer at Neotel. He joined the telecommunications operator last week.
Fleischer, who took the top mobile job at Samsung in April 2012, is also a former regional director of Research in Motion (now BlackBerry) for Southern Africa. He joined Samsung in October 2011 when he took on a business development role in the company’s office automation and consumer electronics division.
As head of mobile, he was responsible for driving Samsung’s mobile communications business division in the retail and business sectors. “Samsung management is looking for a suitable executive candidate to take over the leadership of this function,” the company says in response to a query from TechCentral.
Fleischer says he completed his duties at Samsung at the end of December and took on the new role at Neotel on 12 January. It’s effectively a new role as the duties of chief sales and marketing officer had been fulfilled for some time by Neotel CEO Sunil Joshi.
Neotel is currently the subject of a R7bn takeover bid by mobile operator Vodacom. The proposed acquisition is now the subject of intense scrutiny by communications regulator Icasa and the Competition Commission.
Icasa last week held public hearings into the matter and has reportedly said it will make a decision on whether to approve the deal by March. At the hearings, MTN and Cell C both made submissions arguing why the deal should not be allowed to proceed. — (c) 2015 NewsCentral Media