Seacom — one of Africa’s largest undersea cable providers — has appointed Alpheus Mangale as its new group CEO, with effect from April 1.
The appointment follows news earlier in March that Oliver Fortuin had resigned. Fortuin — who has been at the helm since late 2020 — will remain in his position until June, during which time he will help with the handover process.
Mangale has more than 25 years’ experience across enterprise, telecoms, financial services and technology markets across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
He previously spent 16 years at Dimension Data Group, now NTT, where he held various roles, including chief technology officer, COO and client experience director across Africa and the Middle East. He has also been MD for Cisco SA and chief enterprise officer for MTN Business in SA. His most recent role was as group chief engineering officer for Standard Bank.
Mangale takes over a Seacom that has changed gears recently and begun an expansion, taking advantage of its place in the market to offer more IT services to corporate customers.
The company, with shareholders such as Sanlam and Remgro, sells internet data capacity on its networks to businesses, internet service providers and mobile operators on a wholesale basis.
Founded in 2009, it connects SA’s internet traffic to Europe via its eastern African undersea cable and holds about 25% of the wholesale fibre market locally, competing with firms such as Telkom, Vodacom and Liquid Intelligent Technologies.
Seacom has been making a number of investments in its quest to compete with the likes of Dimension Data and BCX in the enterprise market.
In August, Seacom concluded an agreement with BT to extend its enterprise IT business, and boost its offering to have a comprehensive portfolio of cloud, security and connectivity services.
As part of the expansion plan, Seacom also signed a deal in April 2022 to acquire EOH’s Network Solutions and Hymax divisions.
The group says Mangale’s experience in enterprise telecommunications and knowledge of business in SA and Africa, “plus decades of experience managing large complex organisations, uniquely positions him to continue the excellent work done to date to transform and grow Seacom into Africa's largest converged telecommunications provider.”
In a statement, Pieter Uys, Seacom’s chair, said: “The board and I are delighted that Alpheus has agreed to join us and lead our strategy of African expansion. We are confident, given Alpheus.s track record, knowledge and experience in this operating environment, that Alpheus is precisely the right person to lead the business at this juncture.”
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