• MTN has appointed a new Chief Risk Officer amid headwinds spurred by loadshedding and poor global market conditions.
• Bradley Swanepoel has taken the role, a former executive from Telkom and Samsung Electronics.
• Swanepoel says MTN faces many challenges and operation risks in the current telco landscape.

With ceaseless loadshedding and a global economic downturn providing sharp headwinds for some of the largest companies in South Africa, MTN has seen fit to appoint a new executive to analyse risky business decisions.

Effective 1st October 2023, Bradley Swanepoel will begin serving as the big yellow telco’s chief risk officer.

“South African businesses today, including MTN, face many challenges that pose a range of risks to all aspects of their operations,” explains Swanepoel in a press release sent to Hypertext.

“I look forward, with my team, to playing a part in ensuring that MTN can identify and avoid these operational risks so that it continues to fulfil its role as a leading provider of value-added services to South Africans.”

Swanepoel, pictured in the cover image above, presently holds the position of General Manager: Finance Business Partner at MTN and has organisation-wide experience having served MTN’s Enterprise, Consumer, Fintech, and Technology businesses.

A seasoned charted accountant, Swanepoel has helmed several firms and executive positions over the years. He was previously the director of finance at Samsung Electronics South Africa, as well as the chief financial officer of Telkom Business. He has also held positions at Yellow Pages and BCX.

“With many of those years spent in the telecoms, including his current tenure at MTN, Bradley offers a depth and breadth of understanding of the business and brings a strategic lens to risk management. This should help us enhance the role of risk as a strategic lever within our business,” says MTN SA CEO Charles Molapisi.

“Bradley has a solid track record of managing complex business transformation programmes and has established not only local but pan-African business operations and processes too,” he adds.

MTN has spent billions in efforts to counter the negative effects of loadshedding. Since it is mostly a digital-focused mobile network firm, power cuts affect MTN’s ability to operate, which led to R700 million being lost.

Lately the company has turned towards investing in generating its own renewable power, and has started construction on a small scale wind farm in the Western Cape.

[Image – Trudon Business on Twitter]