MTN Group has appointed a new CEO for MTN Ghana CEO and his name is Stephen Blewett.
Stephen replaced Selorm Adadevoh who has now been promoted to Group as the Chief Commercial Officer (GCCO) after a rousing performance as CEO for Ghana.
Stephen Blewett, currently plays the role of Operations Executive, Markets, at the MTN Group. But from April 1, 2024, he will take over the top job at MTN Ghana.
The newly appointed MTN Ghana CEO, re-joined MTN in July 2023 as the Operations Executive for Markets, with executive responsibility for the Group’s smaller West and Central Africa markets and for providing broader operations support across that region to the Group’s Senior Vice President for Markets.
Prior to that, he was Chief Operating Officer of Digicel, where Selorm also left and joined MTN. Before that, he spent seven years at MTN in the role of CEO for MTN Benin and then MTN Cameroon.
“We welcome Stephen into the MTN Ghana family and look forward to working with him to move the company forward to achieve our Ambition 2025 strategy and beyond,” MTN Ghana Board Chairman Dr. Ishmael Yamson said.
On their part, the board of directors of MTN Ghana said “We also welcome Stephen to the MTN Ghana family and look forward to welcoming him to the business in the months ahead.”
Meanwhile, Selorm also takes over from Jens Schulte-Bockum who steps down as Group Chief Operating Officer at the end of his contract term in March 2024.
In his new position, Selorm will become a member of the MTN Group Executive Committee.
A statement from MTN said Jens Schulte-Bockum will step down from his executive role on 31 March 2024 but will remain a non-executive director on the boards of major subsidiaries – MTN South Africa, MTN Nigeria and Bayobab.
“We congratulate Selorm on his new appointment and thank him for successfully leading the company and steering it through challenging times, and for his hard work and commitment to MTN Ghana over the past five and a half years. We have no doubt that he will excel in his new role,” Dr. Ishmael Yamson said.
Selorm joined MTN in 2018 as CEO of MTN Ghana. Prior to that, he held key roles at Caribbean mobile network operator, Digicel, as well as with Millicom in Africa, in addition to several roles in the USA, UK and Latin America at various stages in his career.
Since joining MTN, Selorm has led the transformation of the MTN Ghana business and has been instrumental in driving the new Ambition 2025 strategy for MTN Ghana towards becoming a platform player. His influence and impact on major industry initiatives have been significant.
The Board of Directors of MTN Ghana and its subsidiaries also expressed their gratitude to Selorm for his immense contribution to the company during his tenure as CEO, and wished him every success in his new role as MTN Group Chief Commercial Officer.
MTN Ghana is the only significant market power in the industry with over 70% market share across voice, data, SMS and mobile money. As the only profitable telco in Ghana, MTN reported an impressive GHS1.7 billion plus profit after tax half year 2023, on the back of over 26 million subscribers, over 14 million mobile money customers, and almost 99% combined coverage of 2G, 3G and 4G nationwide.
MTN continues to invest billions of Ghana cedis in network improvement and corporate social interventions. Indeed as part of their Ambition 2025 strategy, MTN Ghana has earmarked $1 billion for investment in Ghana between 2021 and 2025, $25 million of that is going into building the state of the art Ghana ICT Hub in collaboration with the government.
As the only SMP in the market, MTN has this year alone been compelled by the regulator to increase prices twice and collapse some of its most affordable packages. But due to the its relatively better quality of service compared to the others on the market, it appears subscribers are still sticking with the network in spite of the price increases.
