New Telkom Kenya boss restructures business as Helios takes charge

Telkom Kenya’s new management team led by Chief Executive Aldo Mareuse took office on Tuesday following Helio’s acquisition of a 60 percent stake in the telecom operator.

The new team got down to business immediately, restructuring operations into four key units; mobile, fixed, wholesale and real estate as the new owner seek to turnaround Telkom’s fortunes.

According to Mr Mareuse, the key focus in the interim would be coming up with product offerings that resonate with customers, if the company had a realistic chance of clawing market share.

“Telkom Kenya’s long heritage in the telecommunications sector position the company well to tap into the emerging opportunities brought about by the technological and market changes in the sector,” Mr Mareuse said during his first press conference.

Safaricom controls 67.1 percent of the market followed by Airtel with 20.2 percent while Telkom Kenya accounts for 10.8 percent of the market.

John Barorot, who has previously worked at Safaricom and Airtel, takes over as the Chief Technical and Information Officer while Amer Atoui joins the company as the Head of the Mobile Business Division. George Kebaso, the former Carrier Services Chief moves up the ladder to Managing Director Wholesale

The new boss didn’t give much by way of strategy but did indicate that the firm would be applying for a 4g license. He said that the new structure would make streamline operations and empower workers to deliver better results.

“We have a network, which I think is a very good network, which we need to better utilize,” he said.

Eddy Njoroge, who was retained as chairman of the board, expressed confidence in the team to steer the next phase of development, making the operator competitive.

Report by Karen Mwaniki