Meet the Board

Peter holds a Bachelor of Accounting Science from UNISA, a Higher Diploma in Tax Law from Wits University and is a Chartered Accountant of South Africa. Peter is a director and shareholder of Amabubesi Group, a diversified investment group that was co- founded by Peter and his partners, Sango Ntsaluba and Thabiso Tlelai in 2002. Peter has been working full time for Amabubesi since January 2008 after he left Alexander Forbes. The only listed group company that he is a director of is Pinnacle Technology Holdings. Peter is also a non-executive director and member of the audit committee at Transnet Limited. He serves as Chairman of the audit committee of the Auditor General’s Office. Peter also serves on the advisory council of the Stellenbosch Business School. He has just accepted an appointment to the board of Liberty Holdings, effective February 2009. Before joining Amabubesi he was Group CEO of Alexander Forbes, which he had joined in November 2005. During the time he led the Group, his responsibilities extended to other countries in Africa and Europe. Prior to joining Forbes Peter was Deputy Managing Director of Old Mutual South Africa, a position he held for over five years where he was responsible for all the company’s businesses that served the corporate market like Old Mutual Asset Managers, Old Mutual Properties, Employee Benefits, Group Schemes, Healthcare, Symmetry Multi Manger and Old Mutual Specialised Finance. Prior to being Deputy MD at Old Mutual, he was CEO of the Employee Benefits Division, having joined the company in 1997. Before joining Old Mutual he was a partner at Ernst & Young in Johannesburg. Outside his full time employment, Peter also served on the board of Telkom from 2001 to 2004. He chaired the audit committee and was involved at Telkom at the time of its preparation for its listing on the JSE Limited and New York Stock Exchange. He was appointed to Chairman of the Vodacom Board in May 2009.

Chairman of the Audit Committee
Tom holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree and C.T.A. from the University of the Witwatersrand and is also a Chartered Accountant of South Africa. He is the Chief Executive of Nedbank Group Limited and Nedbank Limited. He was previously the Chief Executive of BOE Limited. He was the founding shareholder and managing director of the retail household goods chain, Boardmans. Prior to this he was a director of Blaikie Johnston Limited, managing director of Sam Newman Limited and worked for the Anglo American Corporation for three years. He served his articles at Deloitte & Touche. He is a non-executive director of Mutual & Federal Insurance and The Banking Association of South Africa and serves as a trustee on a number of charitable organisations. He was appointed to the Vodacom Board in February 2009.

Phuti holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Rutgers University and an MBA from De Montfort University.  Phuti is the managing director of Shanduka Energy. Prior to joining the Shanduka Group, Phuti headed the Project Finance South Africa unit at the Development Bank of Southern Africa and prior to that she spent six years with Fieldstone, an international firm specialising in the financing of infrastructure assets. Phuti was awarded the "Top in Project Finance, 2003" award by the Association of Black Securities & Investment Professionals. In 2007 she was nominated as Global Young Leader by the World Economic Forum. She was listed as one of the "Top 50 women in the world to watch in 2008" by the Wall Street Journal. She was appointed to the Vodacom Board in February 2009.

Thoko holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Swaziland and a Master of Science in Medical Chemistry from Loughborough University of Technology (UK), completed a Senior Executive Programme at Harvard and a Managing Corporate Resources Programme from IMD (Swaziland) and holds a Diploma in Teaching from Swaziland. Thoko is the CEO of Kutana Investment Group and is a director at Knorr Bremse SA (Proprietary) Limited, Absa Group Limited, Paracon Holdings Limited. Thoko has held a number of senior executive positions at Telkom, was marketing director at Lucent Technologies, a divisional managing director of Siemens Telecommunications, the CEO of Alcatel SA and until November 2008, CEO of Hewlett Packard South Africa. Thoko is the recipient of the BWA Businesswoman of the year award in the Corporate category in 2007. In 2005 she won the ICT achiever of the year award, top ICT business woman in Africa award and ICT personality of the year. She was appointed to the Vodacom Board in May 2009.

Michael holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cape Town and is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and the Institute of Electronic Engineers. Michael is directly contracted by Vodafone for secondment to Safaricom as the CEO of Safaricom, a position he has held since Vodafone’s original investment in 2000. He has extensive international experience in the implementation and operation of large mobile and fixed-line networks, including operations in Hungary, Spain, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Korea, United States, Australia and the Middle East. Michael has been the recipient of many awards, including CEO of the year awarded by the Kenya Institute of Management and the Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear (an award given by the President of Kenya to people who have made a positive impact in Kenya). He was appointed to the Vodacom Board in May 2009.

Morten holds a Master of Business Administration from IMD, Switzerland, and a Master of Business and Economics from the Norwegian School of Management. He rose through senior roles at Nordic mobile operator Telenor, leading their Internet division, Business Solution division and corporate strategy. He was most recently CEO of Telenor’s Malaysian subsidiary DiGi Telecom. He has wide ranging geographical experience through Europe, US and Asia. Prior to Telenor, he was a management consultant with Gemini Consulting UK and AT Kearney in Norway and US. He is Vodafone’s CEO of the Africa and Central Europe Region and a member of the Vodafone Executive Committee. He was appointed to the Vodacom Board in November 2008.

Paolo graduated in Management Engineering from the Polytechnic of Milan, and has completed an MBA at INSEAD at Fontainbleau (France).  He began his professional career in Management Consulting at Monitor Company, working in Italy and the United States, and as a consultant with Bain & Company.  Having joined Vodafone in 1999, Paolo held a number of senior management positions in Vodafone Italy including head of the company’s Consumer Division, Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Operating Officer.  Paolo became Chief Executive Office of Vodafone Italy in April 2008.  He was appointed to the Vodacom Board in January 2010.

Ronald is Vodafone’s Group Human Resources Director and a member of the Vodafone Executive Committee. Prior to joining Vodafone, Ronald was Executive Vice President HR for Shell’s global downstream business (refining, retail, commercial, lubricants, chemicals) responsible for 81 000 employees in approximately 120 countries. Prior to working for Shell, he spent nine years working for PepsiCo in various international senior HR roles, including assignments in Switzerland, Spain, South Africa, the UK and Poland. In is last role he was responsible for the Europe, Middle East & Africa region for PepsiCo Foods International. Prior to PepsiCo he worked nine years for AT&T Network Systems in Human Resources roles in the Netherlands and Poland. He was appointed to the Vodacom Board in February 2009.

Richard holds a Masters degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge and is a Chartered Accountant and member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (England & Wales). He worked in investment banking, firstly for Charterhouse Bank, then from 1996 for Merrill Lynch, latterly as a managing director of investment banking. In 2004 he moved to Goldman Sachs as a managing director in its financing group until he moved to Vodafone in 2006 where he currently holds the position of Group Investor Relations Director. He was appointed to the Vodacom Board in February 2007.

Mr Moleketi is the former Deputy Minister of Finance and former chairman of the Public Investment Corporation. He is currently the chairman of Brait SA, a non executive director of Nedbank and a member of the Local Organising Committee FIFA World Cup 2010. Mr Moleketi has a post graduate diploma in economic principles, a masters science degree in financial economics (London University) and completed an advanced management programme at Harvard Business School.

Chief Executive Officer (Executive director)
Pieter holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Engineering from the University of Stellenbosch and a Master of Business Administration degree from Stellenbosch Business School. Pieter was appointed CEO of Vodacom Group with effect from 1 October 2008. Prior to his appointment as CEO, Pieter served as the chief operating officer for Vodacom Group from April 2004 until his appointment as CEO. He also served as managing director of Vodacom SA from December 2001 until March 2005. Pieter joined Vodacom Group in 1993 as a member of the initial engineering team. He was appointed to the Vodacom Board in April 2004.

Managing Director Vodacom SA (Executive director)
Shameel holds a Bachelor of Accounting Science (Honours) from the University of South Africa and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. He is also an Associated General Accountant and Commercial and Financial Accountant (South Africa). Shameel joined Vodacom in March 1994 after completing his articles and has held various positions within Vodacom. He was appointed as managing director of Vodacom SA in April 2005. He has served as the managing director of Vodacom service provider company (the service provision and commercial arm of Vodacom) from 2000 to 2005. Shameel was also managing director and founder of Vodacom Equipment Company (Proprietary) Limited, the former handset distribution company in Vodacom from 1998 to 2000. He was appointed to the Vodacom Board in September 2000.

Chief Financial Officer
Rob is Chartered Accountant and joined the company as Chief Financial Officer and director of the Vodacom Group on 1 July 2009, taking responsibility for finance, company secretarial, investor relations and business development and strategy.  He has over 17 years senior financial experience and has spent the last 9 years with the Nedbank Group holding various director positions, latterly, most recently as Managing Director of Nedbank Retail. He also served as a member of the Nedbank Group Executive Committee as well as of the Banking Association Operating Board.  He was previously Chief Operating Officer of Computer Configurations Holdings and Head of Investment Banking at Standard Corporate & Merchant Bank.

Chief Officer Corporate Affairs
Robert has spent most of his career in the telecommunications industry, starting with British Telecommunications Plc where he held a number of marketing, purchasing and commercial roles over a 15-year period. From 1994 to 1998 he was purchasing director for Dixons Stores Group, the largest electrical retailer in the United Kingdom, from where he joined Vodafone as the purchasing director for its United Kingdom business. In 2000, he was appointed to the role of Global Handset purchasing director responsible for Vodafone’s handset business across 26 countries. In 2003 he moved to Japan as consumer marketing director (Asia). He was appointed to the Vodacom Board in September 2006 from which he retired on 24 February 2009. Bob also sits on the board of Safaricom in Kenya.

Chief Human Resources Officer
Lungile holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees and a Higher Diploma in Personnel Management.  Lungile has over 20 years experience in human resources management spanning a wide range of industry sectors.  She is a highly sought after speaker at conferences and has contributed to a book entitled “Building Human Capital” published by Knowledge Resources. Prior to joining Vodacom in 2000 as the Chief Human Resources Officer, she worked for Primedia Limited as Group General Manager, Human Resources, Otis (Proprietary) Limited as Human Resources Manager for OTIS SADC Companies, Nedcor Bank Limited as Senior Human Resources Officer and Anglo Alpha as Group Training Officer.

Chief Officer International Business
Willem qualified as a Chartered Accountant of South Africa. He joined Telkom in April 1993 as a member of the team, which established Vodacom as a company. In November 1993 he joined Vodacom as a Financial Manager. He rose up the ranks during his career at Vodacom to the position of Finance Director of Vodacom SA, which he held for four years until July 2000. He also subsequently held a position of Finance Director for Vodacom Service Provider Company and for Vodacom International. He was appointed as Managing Director of Vodacom DRC from September 2002 until March 2004. He then resigned from Vodacom and was appointed as the CEO of VMobile in Nigeria from April 2004, and held a position until July 2006. Willem took a sabbatical from the corporate world for two years and in August 2008 joined Vodacom again as advisor to the CEO and has recently been appointed as Chief Officer International Business.