Orange on Thursday announced a series of job changes amongst its top management, a move it hopes will support its growth plans in Africa and the Middle East and its quest for new revenue streams.
The France-based operator named HR head Bruno Mettling as deputy CEO in charge of its operations in Africa and the Middle East, while current Orange Spain head Jean-Marc Vignolles will serve as his second in command under the title of COO for the region.
"Africa and the Middle East is a grow th territory for Orange. The creation of a holding company bringing together its operations in this zone, as well as the planned acquisition of four new countries, opens up new development prospects for the group to affirm its ambitions in that region," the telco said, in a statement.
Orange announced in July that it is spinning out its Africa and Middle East operations into a separate legal entity.
Marc Rennard, who currently heads up Orange’s Middle East and Africa business, has been appointed to the role of deputy CEO in charge of customer experience and mobile financial services.
Mobile financial services is one of two areas of diversification Orange outlined in its Essentials 2020 plan earlier this year, the other being connected objects.
When he presented the plan in March, Orange CEO Stephane Richard said Orange aims to generate revenues in excess of €1 billion from these two areas in 2020, made up of €600 million from M2M and the Internet of Things (IoT) and €400 million from financial services.
"These changes will take effect on 1 March 2016 in order to allow for the completion of certain particularly important projects for the group, such as the preparation of our mobile banking offer and the integration of Jazztel," Richard said on Thursday.
The role of CEO of Orange Spain, including newly-acquired Jazztel, will fall to Laurent Paillassot, while Jérôme Barré will step up as SEVP of human resources.
A final change will see Orange Business Services leader Thierry Bonhomme promoted to become deputy chief executive officer.
"This appointment recognises his contribution to the redeployment of OBS as the trusted partner for enterprise customers in their digital transformation," Orange said.
