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21 October 2013

Telkom announces new Chief Information Officer

Telkom today announced the appointment of seasoned IT veteran Mr Len de Villiers as Chief Information Officer effective as of 1 November 2013.

Group CEO, Mr Sipho Maseko welcomed the appointment in recognition of the Company’s determined efforts to build a team that will drive the turnaround of Telkom.

This appointment is in line with Telkom's newly designed leadership structure which sees the introduction of a Chief Operating Officer, Dr Brian Armstrong; Head of strategy, Dr Miriam Altman, the newly appointed Chief Information Officer, Mr Len De Villiers. Additionally the positions of Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Procurement Officer have been introduced but are still to be appointed.

“The process of building a winning team is gaining momentum and I am confident that we will soon have a capable and dedicated team in place to lead Telkom’s turnaround, put us on firm footing to compete effectively in a demanding marketplace and reach our ultimate objective which is to restore our leadership position in the telecommunications sector," he adds.

Noting that the IT factory is a critical enabler of Telkom’s mid- and long term strategic plans, Mr Maseko says, "As we continue to move forward with Telkom’s transformation to improve our operational efficiencies, maximise the returns made possible by the evolution of our network and pursue the convergence agenda, we rely heavily on IT architecture and systems that are of a world class standard. At the same time we have to strengthen our focus on innovation and Research and Development.”

Mr de Villiers has 25 years’ experience in the IT industry and is considered to be one of the top CIO’s in South Africa. In 2009, he was voted “the most admired CIO in South Africa” by the CIO Council of South Africa (consisting of the top 200 CIO’s in the country).

He began his career in 1978 in IT management positions at BP, Metro Cash and Carry and Gencor.  He joined First National Bank as GM of IT in 1986, followed by three years as MD of Microdata and as an Executive Director at Datakor Holdings.

Mr de Villiers was appointed Managing Director of Nedbank's Group Operations in 2003 and as MD of Nedbank’s Group Technology and Support Services in 2004. During the 15 years he spent with Nedbank he won several top achiever awards.

Mr de Villiers joined Absa Bank as Group CIO in 2008 where he was responsible for articulating the technology plans and initiatives necessary to create and support the underlying technology required for their “One Absa” strategy.

Mr de Villiers then joined Transaction Capital in January 2012 as Group CIO.

He was educated at RAU, Wits, Insead (France) and Harvard (USA).

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.