Lars Stork ‘retires’ as Vodafone Zambia CEO
Vodafone Zambia’s CEO Lars Stork has retired as CEO of the company. Their board chairperson Gilbert Temba has shared in a statement.
The Board of Mobile Broadband Limited T/A Vodafone Zambia would like to announce the retirement of Mr. Lars Hendrik Stork, the Chief Executive Officer.
Mr Temba said the Board and management would like to thank Mr. Stork for his service to the company and wish him the best in his future endeavors.
According to the statement the Board will be announcing a new CEO soon and other structural changes including new ownership of Vodafone Zambia.
Did he retire on his own or was he forced to retire?
A source tells us different, that the Vodafone Zambia CEO was forced to tender his resignation after the mounting debt, non-payment of staff salaries for about 3 months, and the failure of potential buyouts of the company from Telkom and Unitel (Unitel are the guys bringing the 4th mobile operator, Uzi Zambia).
A possible candidate for the role is Amon Jere, who was appointed as Vodafone Zambia’s Chief Sales and Distribution Officer a few months ago.
We’ll share more as the story unfolds.
Good move to remove the old dutch man. Company has deteriorated due to his mismanagement of company finances. The relevant authorities should move in to investigate the externalization of money by him and his white directors who have since fled the country. Mr. Jere as CEO will be a bad move. His a finished man in the telco industry and has no capacity to run a company. Fired from Airtel, Lapgreen, Zamtel & MTN on the pretext of his “retired” or “mutual separation”.
You would do well to avoid ” dutch and white” in your statement. Try not to refer by nationality or tribe and skin color to not portray bias in your statement.
He left with 420,000$ in his pocket. A 220,000$ considered as bonus and another 200,000$ a prepaid advance on his salary. While majority of the employees are not paid since almost 3 month. Adding that he destroyed another 3 operations in Uganda, Ghana and Cameroon leaving behind hindered unpaid employees.
I think the investment of ISPs is pretty different according to region and country. I referring to the former Africonnect CEO who came in from south Africa with brilliant ideas but the market wasnt too ready for him and he equally lost his job. I think for an ISP to thrive a combination of local and foreign leadership is needed or the expatriate needs to understand culture more. I am kind of not too surprised about this. All the best Vodafone