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Zain’s long time CEO (since 2002), Dr Saad Al Barrak, has stepped down. In a short statement to the Kuwaiti Stock Exchange, the Kuwati-based Middle East and African mobile giant said that Al Barrak has “handed in his resignation to the chairman of the board and the chairman will present the resignation to board members to look into the matter.”
Since Al Barrak was both managing director and deputy chairman of the firm, his resignation could trigger a major shift in strategy at the group. He was responsible for an aggressive period of expansion, but progress has stalled recently following attempts to sell off a large chunk of the company.
As a reminder, Al Barrak reined Zain during the company’s $3.4 billion acquisition of Netherlands-based Celtel in 2005. The idea was to enter numerous markets in Africa and eventually become a top ten global operator by 2011. That strategy, however, hasn’t proved to work, as many of Zain’s African networks ended up being be less profitable than expected.
Commenting on Al Barrak’s resignation, telecom analyst at Shuaa Capital – Simon Simonian said: “I see [Al Barrak's] resignation as a result of the different agendas between the shareholders and the management. He wanted to continue to build and grow the company.”
[Via: GSMA]
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
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