William Mzimba has resigned as CEO of Vodacom Business, a subsidiary of JSE-listed Vodacom Group, and will be leaving the company at the end of September 2023 according to an internal memo sent to staff.
The internal memo reads in part, “After five impactful years as Chief Officer of Vodacom Business, William Mzimba will be retiring from Vodacom at the end of September 2023,” MyBroadband reports.
Mzimba officially took the reins at Vodacom’s enterprise business unit on 1 May 2018 to replace Vuyani Jarana who stepped down to run the troubled South African Airways (SAA) in November 2017.
He ultimately resigned from South Africa’s flag carrier in May 2019. SAA went into business rescue that December. After a sabbatical, Jarana launched Ilitha Telecommunications, a fibre operator targeting South Africa’s underserved urban and peri-urban areas.
In the past five years, Mzimba has delivered enormous value to the Vodafone-owned mobile phone company. He ensured that Vodacom Business continued to fire on all cylinders and elevated the business unit to the next level.
Mzimba joined Vodacom from Accenture, where he had served as chief executive and chairman of Accenture in Africa since 2006. In his 18 years at Accenture, he oversaw the growth and strategy of the company in Africa. He also served as Accenture’s financial services industry lead, where he was responsible for its banking and insurance business clients.
The company has disclosed that a successor would be announced in due course.
Read also: MTN to overtake Vodacom as SA’s leading telco provider with acquisition of Telkom
What you should know about William Mzimba
Mzimba holds an MBA, a BA (Honours) in Business Studies, a Wits Management Advancement Programme qualification, and a diploma in datametrics.
In Vodacom’s announcement of Mzimba’s appointment in 2018, it said he would report directly to group CEO Shameel Joosub. He also served on the group executive committee and the board of Vodacom South Africa.
As a head of the business unit, Mzimba led a team that ensured Vodacom acquired IoT.nxt, one of South Africa’s innovative IoT startups that are expanding globally and a company to watch in the next few years. The acquisition will significantly accelerate its IoT strategy and transform its dedicated IoT business unit.
He also enabled Vodacom to go big on Cloud and has been instrumental in helping Vodacom clinch a deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Vodacom will become both a customer of AWS and a reseller of AWS services across Africa. The partnership is a “game-changer” because it takes Vodacom beyond being just a big seller of connectivity.
In short, Vodacom leveraging AWS’ highly scalable and available cloud platform will deliver the innovative product-led transition to a full Cloud solution offering. Thanks to Mzimba’s leadership and foresight Vodacom seems likely to become the biggest IoT and cloud services enabler and provider in Africa.
Sources say that Mzimba is likely to either join former Altron’s CEO Mteto Nyati at his new company BSG (Business Systems Group) or MTN. Last November, Nyati bought a 40% stake in business technology consulting firm BSG for an undisclosed sum and will become the company’s executive chairman.
Read also: Juliet Ehimuan, Google’s first West Africa director resigns
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