Former MTN CEO joins Huge Group

Johannesburg - One of the founding members of mobile network MTN, Zunaid Bulbulia, has joined telecoms service company Huge Group.

Huge Group - which is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) AltX board - on Friday announced the appointment of Bulbulia as an independent non-executive director and a member of the company’s audit committee with effect from January 28.

Bulbulia had a 20 year career at MTN. After starting out as financial manager at MTN, he became chief financial officer for the mobile network’s South African operations in 2005 and chief executive officer in 2013.

In August 2014, Ahmad Farroukh took over as CEO of MTN South Africa and Bulbulia was appointed group chief operations executive of MTN Group. Farroukh then quit in July 2015 after a weeks-long strike led by the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and he was replaced by former Microsoft South Africa executive Mteto Nyati.

Huge Group, in its market update, said that Bulbulia left MTN Group in December 2015 to “pursue various business opportunities”.

Bulbulia holds a BCom Accounting Degree from the University of Witwatersrand and a BCompt Honours (CTA) from the University of South Africa. He is also a qualified Chartered Accountant.