Wim Vanhelleputte

Wim Vanhelleputte
Wim Vanhelleputte
Born	Belgium
Nationality	Belgian
Citizenship	Belgium
Alma mater	State University of Ghent ; (Bachelor of Engineering); (Master of Science in Nuclear & Solid-state Physics); Université libre de Bruxelles ; (Master of Science in Power Plant Management)
Occupation(s)	Engineer, Businessman and Corporate Executive
Years active	2000s – present
Known for	Managerial skills, Business record
Title	Designated Chief Executive Officer of Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia.

Last updated August 02, 2023

Wim Vanhelleputte is a Belgian engineer, businessman and corporate executive, who was appointed as chief executive officer and managing director of Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia Plc., the Ethiopian subsidiary of the telecommunications and financial multinational Safaricom Plc., based in Nairobi Kenya. His appointment was made in June 2023 and he is expected to assume office on 1 September 2023.^[1]

Background and education

Vanhelleputte is a Belgian national. He is also reported to be a naturalized Ugandan citizen.^[3] He holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree, awarded by the State University of Ghent, in Ghent, Belgium. The same university awarded him a Master of Science degree in Nuclear & Solid-State Physics. He also holds a Master of Science in Power Plant Management, from the Université libre de Bruxelles, in Brussels, Belgium.^[1]

Career

Vanhelleputte has engineering and management experience that spans over 25 years, with a significant portion of his career spent in the management of telecommunication networks on the African continent.^[1]^[4]

His first job was as an associate engineer, based in the Czech Republic, at the European division of Westinghouse Energy Systems. He then transferred to Siemens Atea, an IT company as a project engineer in Zimbabwe, before relocating to Gabon as a residential project manager. He has held senior leadership roles in various other companies including as CEO at Sentel GSM in Senegal, as managing director of TchadMobile in Chad and as General Manager at Telcel in Gabon.^[1]^[4]

Between 2009 and 2015, he served as the CEO for MTN Côte d'Ivoire. He then served as the Regional Director for Francophone Africa at Airtel Africa and then as cluster CEO for Airtel Congo Kinshasa and Airtel Congo Brazzaville.^[1]^[4]

He then served a six-year stint as the CEO of MTN Uganda, from 2016 until 2022. During his tenure, he oversaw the renewal of the telco transmission license, the separation of the company's financial services subsidiary into a separate entity and the successful listing of the shares of the company on the Uganda Securities Exchange in an initial public offering (IPO). He was replaced at MTN Uganda by Sylvia Wairimu Mulinge a former executive at Safaricom Plc. and the first female CEO at the Ugandan company.^[5]

Safaricom Ethiopia

Vanhelleputte was selected by the board of Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia Plc, to replace Anwar Soussa, the founding managing director, whose two-year secondment from Vodacom had come to an end.^[1]^[4]

Related Research Articles

Safaricom PLC is a listed Kenyan mobile network operator headquartered at Safaricom House in Nairobi, Kenya. It is the largest telecommunications provider in Kenya, and one of the most profitable companies in the East and Central Africa region. The company offers mobile telephony, mobile money transfer, consumer electronics, ecommerce, cloud computing, data, music streaming, and fibre optic services. It is most renowned as the home of M-PESA, a mobile banking SMS-based service.

Cipla Quality Chemical Industries Limited (CiplaQCIL) is a pharmaceutical manufacturing company in Uganda. According to a 2007 published report, it was the only company in Africa that manufactured triple-combination antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. CiplaQCIL also manufactures the antimalarial drug Lumartem, containing artemisinin and lumefantrine, and the Hepatitis B generic medicines Texavir and Zentair.

NCBA Bank Kenya, whose full name is NCBA Bank Kenya Plc, is a commercial bank in Kenya. It is licensed by the Central Bank of Kenya, the country's central bank and national banking regulator.

Exim Bank (Uganda) (EBU), commonly known as Exim Bank, is a commercial bank in Uganda. It is one of the commercial banks licensed by the Bank of Uganda (BOU), the central bank and national banking regulator. EBU is a member of the Exim Bank Group (East Africa), a large financial services conglomerate with subsidiaries in Tanzania, Comoros, Uganda and Djibouti. The group also maintains a representative office in Ethiopia.

MTN Uganda is the largest telecom company in Uganda, with 11.2 million subscribers, accounting for 55 percent market share, as of 30 June 2017. By 31 December 2019, its customer base had increased to 12.6 million customers. In March 2021, the Uganda Communications Commission estimated the number of MTN customers in Uganda at 15 million, out of 28.3 million mobile network subscribers, thereby attaining a 53 percent market share.

NCBA Bank Uganda Limited, is a commercial bank in Uganda. It is one of the commercial banks licensed by the Bank of Uganda, the country's central bank and national banking regulator.

Airtel Africa plc, commonly known as (d/b/a) Airtel, is a Indian multinational company that provides telecommunications and mobile money services in 14 countries in Africa, primarily in East, Central and West Africa. Airtel Africa is majority owned by the Indian telecommunications company Bharti Airtel. Airtel Africa offers mobile voice and data services as well as mobile money services both nationally and internationally. Airtel Nigeria is the most profitable unit of Airtel Africa, due to its cheap data plans in Nigeria. As of March 2019, Airtel had over 99 million subscribers in the continent. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

K2 Telecom is a telecommunications network company in Uganda. It was established in January 2013. By November 2015, the company's estimated its number of subscribers at about 200,000.

Finserve Africa Limited is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in Kenya. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Equity Group Holdings and is using the Airtel Kenya network as its carrier.

Equity Group Holdings Limited (EGHL), formerly Equity Bank Group, is a financial services holding company based in the African Great Lakes region. EGHL's headquarters are in Nairobi, Kenya, with subsidiaries in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo and a representative office in Ethiopia.

WPP-Scangroup is a subsidiary of WPP and is listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. It is the largest marketing and communication group operating a multi-agency model across multiple disciplines in Sub-Saharan Africa. The group comprises the ad agencies Ogilvy Africa, SCANAD, JWT and BluePrint Marketing; media firms GroupM, MediaCom Africa, Mindshare and MEC; public relations agencies Ogilvy PR and H+K Strategies; market research agency Millward Brown; specialty communication firms Roundtrip and Geometry Global; and digital companies OgilvyOne, Squad Digital and SCANAD Digital. In all, over 1200 people are employed across the various organizations.

Airtel Uganda Limited is a mobile communications and information technology services provider in Uganda. The company also offers mobile funds transfer and banking services known as Airtel Payments Bank. Airtel Uganda Limited is a subsidiary of Airtel Africa PLC.

Robert William Collymore was a Guyanese-born Kenyan businessman who served as the chief executive officer at Safaricom, a multi-national telecommunications company based in Kenya.

Sylvia Wairimu Mulinge, is a Kenyan businesswoman and corporate executive. Since 1 October 2022, she serves as the chief executive officer of MTN Uganda, replacing Wim Vanhelleputte, who was promoted to regional executive responsible for operations in Congo-Brazzaville, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry and Liberia.

Airtel Kenya Ltd, a subsidiary of Airtel Africa, is the second largest telecommunications services provider in Kenya after Safaricom PLC. It has an estimated 16.2 million subscribers of the total 59.8 million subscribers in the Kenyan market equivalent to 27.2% market share. Airtel market share has been rising steadily over the last few years.

Peter Ndegwa is a Kenyan businessman, accountant and corporate executive, who serves as the chief executive officer at Safaricom, the largest telecommunications company in the countries of the East African Community, with approximately 35.6 million subscribers in December 2020.

Anwar Soussa is a Greek businessman and corporate executive, who serves and the managing director and chief executive officer of Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia, the Ethiopian subsidiary of the telecommunications and financial multinational Safaricom, based in Nairobi Kenya. Before that, from September 2017 until June 2021, he was the CEO of Vodacom Congo DRC SA, based in Kinshasa and chairman of Vodacash.

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kabui Mwangi (27 June 2023). "Safaricom picks new Ethiopia chief executive on Soussa exit". Business Daily Africa . Nairobi, Kenya. Retrieved 28 June 2023.
↑ Job Bwire (30 June 2022). "Safaricom's Sylvia Mulinge replaces Wim Vanhelleputte as MTN-Uganda boss". Daily Monitor . Kampala, Uganda. Retrieved 28 June 2023.
↑ Michael Wakabi (1 July 2023). "Wim's turn at the wheel at Ethiopian telco". The EastAfrican . Nairobi, Kenya. Retrieved 3 July 2023.
1 2 3 4 Ethiopian Monitor (27 June 2023). "Safaricom Ethiopia Onboards Wim Vanhelleputte as New CEO". Ethiopian Monitor. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Retrieved 28 June 2023.
↑ Aloysius Kasoma (1 July 2022). "Wim Vanhelleputte Leaves MTN Uganda". New Vision . Kampala. Retrieved 28 June 2023.

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1R-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kabui Mwangi (27 June 2023). "Safaricom picks new Ethiopia chief executive on Soussa exit". Business Daily Africa . Nairobi, Kenya. Retrieved 28 June 2023.

[2R-2] Job Bwire (30 June 2022). "Safaricom's Sylvia Mulinge replaces Wim Vanhelleputte as MTN-Uganda boss". Daily Monitor . Kampala, Uganda. Retrieved 28 June 2023.

[3R-3] Michael Wakabi (1 July 2023). "Wim's turn at the wheel at Ethiopian telco". The EastAfrican . Nairobi, Kenya. Retrieved 3 July 2023.

[4R-4] 1 2 3 4 Ethiopian Monitor (27 June 2023). "Safaricom Ethiopia Onboards Wim Vanhelleputte as New CEO". Ethiopian Monitor. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Retrieved 28 June 2023.

[5R-5] Aloysius Kasoma (1 July 2022). "Wim Vanhelleputte Leaves MTN Uganda". New Vision . Kampala. Retrieved 28 June 2023.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]