Airtel CEO Lucy Quist leaves Airtel Ghana
Airtel Ghana’s CEO, Lucy Quist, is leaving the company to pursue personal interests out-side the company.
A short note to her followers on her Facebook page and her website confirms her planned exit.
Portions
of her note read “After almost three and a half year of leading the
amazing team at Airtel Ghana, the time is right for me to move on to the
next chapter. It has been a truly remarkable journey and I thank each
and every one of you for your support, encourage-ment and business
partnership over the course of my stewardship.
“We are proud of
our achievements. Particularly, I want to thank all those who have been
part of the many initiatives I have led over the last few years to
empower young people and every young person who works with me for that
matter. Notably the Evolve with STEM and the Bold New Normal
initiatives. I look forward to empowering more young people even as I
continue my professional journey. Together we will create the Bold New
Normal of prosperity for our country and continent”.
Sources close to the Airtel boss confirmed her planned exit.
Lucy’s
exit brings to an end months of speculation about her role as CEO of
Airtel Ghana once the planned merger between the company and Tigo Ghana
are concluded.
Lucy Quist joined Airtel Ghana in 2014 as the
first Ghanaian female CEO of a major multi-national telecom company.
During her tenure, she successfully led her team to reposition and
transform Airtel Ghana into one of the fastest growing telecom companies
in the country as well as the industry leader in data and digital
innovation and the most loved telecom brand in the daily lives of
Ghanaians.
She is credited with leading the launch of
breakthrough initiatives for Airtel Ghana includ-ing the introduction of
bespoke sub brands and value propositions for customers – such as
Airtel Premier, the telecom industry’s first ever sub brand that
provides telecom and lifestyle solutions for High Value customers. She
also led the creation of Airtel’s Data Business – building a specific
sub brand to grow the data side of the business – resulting in a
significant growth in customer and revenue market share for data.
Airtel’s Data Busi-ness became the conduit for digital inclusion and
some of the most remarkable innova-tions in the data and internet
service provider space within the Ghanaian telecom indus-try.
For instance, under her leadership, Airtel Ghana was first to
introduce Free Facebook in 2015 and also zero-rated over 40 sites across
education, media, healthcare and lifestyle which enabled thousands of
Ghanaians, who would otherwise be excluded, to be digitally included.
The company would follow up with breakthrough innovations such as
Bundles on Facebook which enables the purchase of data bundles in real
time on Facebook, dual recharge cards that enabled customers to directly
load either data or airtime from the same recharge card among others.
Commercial
growth aside, Mrs. Quist has been a strong advocate for corporate
citizenship and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) –
enabling Airtel Ghana to play a significant role in the social and
economic development of the country through the company’s community
investment programmes such as Airtel Touching Lives, Airtel Ris-ing
Stars, Schools Adoption programme and the Evolve with STEM initiative –
which she personally championed to transform mindsets and empower young
people to embrace STEM.
Through her exemplary leadership, Airtel
Ghana has been recognised repeatedly by repu-table organisations in
Ghana, Africa and globally. The company is reported to have won over 30
major competitive awards during her tenure including Best Data and
Internet Service Provider, Telecom Business of the Year, Best CSR
initiative in Africa and at the Global Carrier Awards.
On a
personal level, Mrs. Quist has been recognised by several reputable
organisations for her transformational and inspirational leadership, her
exceptional strategic marketing in-sights, selfless dedication to
growing people and for championing causes that are shaping the lives of
young people on the continent. Notable among these are – Corporate
Leader-ship Award (Ghana Legacy Honours 2017), Telecom CEO of the Year
(Ghana ICT and Tel-ecoms Award 2016), CSR CEO of the year (Ghana CSR
Excellence Awards 2016) and CIMG Marketing Woman of the year (2014).
Lucy
Quist has been involved in many initiatives targeted at young people.
In recent times, she has embarked on the “Bold New Normal Tour” to
empower young people to fully re-alise their potential.
She is on
the Board of many distinguished local and international organisations
including the International Board for African Institute for Mathematical
Sciences (AIMS), Petra Trust Company Ltd, the Business Environment
Enabling Programme under the UK Department of International Development
(DFID), the Climate Innovation Center Ghana and The Ex-ploratory among
others.
She is a founding member of the Executive Women Network, a
non-profit organization of women in senior management and executive
positions committed to inspiring, empower-ing and supporting women
executives to succeed and become influential both locally and
internationally.
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