What’s going on at Airtel Zambia?

“Airtel Zambia has embarked on a strategic restructuring that will reposition the business and reinforce its competitiveness in the market place. The exercise, which is focused on aligning the company’s structure with its operating model, also entailed a right-sizing that impacted 41 members of our current workforce,” according to a statement from Peter Correia, Airtel Zambia Managing Director.

This means they had to retrench 41 employees this month in order to ‘to create a high performing organization’. Airtel has said they have generously compensated them and have sought the services of a job search company to help place these former employees in other companies and provide extra training should they need it, a cost that Airtel will cover.

On a larger scale, Bharti Airtel has made some changes in its senior management and it’s African operational structure to form a cluster based model. Its 15 operations have been reduced to 8 clusters, with some MDs taking over 2 countries, like Peter Correia who will now be in charge of Zambia and Malawi, while the Malawian MD Charles Kamota now reports to him.

Christian de Faria, MD & CEO, Airtel Africa, has been elevated to the position of Executive Chairman, Airtel Africa and will lead all matters relating to legal, regulatory affairs, shareholders as well as Mergers & Acquisitions. Raghunath Mandava, who is currently Director – Customer Experience, India & South Asia, will take over as Chief Operating Officer, Airtel Africa. Raghu will relocate to Nairobi and will be fully responsible for the commercial operations.

On the organisational changes Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Airtel said, “Christian has done an excellent job by streamlining the operations, strengthening the leadership teams across Africa while enhancing the image of Airtel brand across Africa. We believe we have a strong platform to accelerate our journey towards profitability and market leadership and the new cluster based organisation design will provide an enabling environment to the teams. The appointment of Raghu will help leverage the platform and sharpen our market focus and strengthen the innovation pipeline. We remain fully committed to Africa and will continue to invest in the growth of our operations. I wish Christian, Raghu and the operating teams the very best for their new roles.” 

The 8 clusters are:

Cluster 1
Nigeria and Ghana will now form one cluster under the leadership of Segun Ogunsanya. He will continue to be the MD for Nigeria while Lucy Quist, MD for Ghana will report into him.

Cluster 2
Wim Vanhelleputte will take responsibility for DRC and Congo Brazzaville. In addition to being MD for DRC, Wim will also have Gerard Lokossou – MD Congo Brazzaville reporting into him.

Cluster 3
Alain Kahasha will oversee both Gabon and Madagascar. Heiko Schlittke, MD for Gabon and Maixent Bekangba, MD – Madagascar will both report into him.

Cluster 4
Tom Gutjahr will continue as MD Uganda and also have the MD for Seychelles, Amadou Mahamat Dina, reporting into him.

Cluster 5
Sunil Colaso – MD Tanzania will also have Michael Adjei – MD for Rwanda reporting into him.

Cluster 6
Peter Correia now takes charge of both Zambia and Malawi. While Peter continues as the MD for Zambia, Charles Kamoto – MD Malawi will also report into him.

Cluster 7
Anwar Soussa will continue as MD for Chad. Raymond Mendy, MD for Niger, will report into Anwar.

Cluster 8
Kenya OpCo will continue to be led by Adil Elyoussefi as MD.