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05 December 2013

Telkom announces appointment of Chief Procurement Officer

Telkom today announced the appointment of Mr Ian Russell as Chief Procurement Officer.

Mr Russell will effectively join the Telkom team on 1 February 2014.

Says Telkom Group CEO, Mr Sipho Maseko, "This appointment takes us a step closer to completing the renewal of the top leadership team. Ian's arrival will further bolster a capable and dedicated team that's in place to drive Telkom's transformation."

This follows the Company's announcement of Mr Len De Villiers as the new Chief Information Officer and of Enzo Scarcella as the Chief Marketing Officer. The Company is still recruiting a Chief Technology Officer and an announcement in this regard will be made at an appropriate time.

"For Telkom, procurement is a transformative tool that can stimulate economic and social development in a broad context. I am confident that Ian's vast experience in his field of expertise will help us drive cost transformation as we rebase our third-party spend through consolidation and disciplined vendor control and management. Ian will be tasked with the development of more efficient supply chain options that enable us to relentlessly drive down our costs. In addition, he will further drive Telkom's property portfolio optimisation by freeing up some of the capital and reigning in the maintenance costs of these assets," continued Maseko.

Mr Russell holds a BSc (Hons) in Economics and an MBA (Distinction) in Strategic Procurement, and has won a number of academic awards from both his Universities. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply, and has been recognised internationally for leading and developing procurement best practice.

He is currently the outgoing Head of Procurement for Johannesburg based South African Breweries (SAB) Ltd and previous career highlights include Group Integration Director, Chief Administration Officer and Chief Procurement Officer for the Absa Group.

Mr Russell has also worked for Barclays from 1997-2005, and has held a number of senior back office roles across the Barclays organisation, including setting up and running the Smartsourcing team which was entirely focused on transformational outsourcing.

Says Mr Russell, "I am hugely excited by the opportunity to become part of Telkom's turnaround journey, and am looking forward to driving procurement best practice across Telkom's supply chain to drive lower operating costs and improved margins."

For further enquiries, please contact:

Pynee Chetty

Senior Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel:+27 12 642 1716

Mobile: +27 81 389 7874

Email: chettpr2@telkom.co.za

 OR

Leigh-Ann Francis

Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel: +27 12 642 1728

Mobile: +27 81 391 4780

Email: francilm@telkom.co.za

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ABOUT TELKOM:

Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa. We had consolidated operating revenue of R16.8 billion and normalised profit after tax of R1, 683 million for the period ended 30 September 2015. Total assets amounted to R41.9 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R23.5 billion as of 30 September 2015. The group generated normalised free cash flow of R1.4 billion for the period ended 30 September 2015.

As of 30 September 2015, we had approximately 3.3 million telephone access lines in service and 1,030,441 ports connected via MSAN access. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:

  • fixed-line retail voice services using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of subscription based value-added voice services and calling plans;
  • fixed-line customer premises equipment rental and sales services both voice and data needs and these include PABX, Computers, Routers, Modems, Telephone handsets and other ancillary equipment;
  • interconnection services, including terminating and transiting traffic from South African mobile operators, as well as from international operators and transiting traffic from mobile to international destinations;
  • fixed-line data services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point-to-point leased lines, ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services, packet-based services, managed data networking services and internet access and related information technology services;
  • Data Centre Operations includes e-commerce, application service provider, hosting, data storage, e-mail and security services;
  • W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a 3G next generation network, including fixed voice services, data services and nomadic voice services;
  • mobile communication services, including voice services, data services and handset sales through our mobile navbar-brand called Telkom Mobile;
  •  information and communication services including cloud services, infrastructure services, workspace services, global service integration management and hardware and network equipment sales locally, in seven African countries, the UK and Dubai through Business Connexion Group; and
  • other services including directory services, through Trudon (Pty) Ltd, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Pty) Ltd.

Convergence is one of our key strategic initiatives in building a sustainable future for Telkom.  We will lead the provision of converged services in South Africa in support of our mission statement: Seamlessly connecting people to a better life.