• The former chief financial officer of Cell C, Lerato Dipuo Phueginia Pule has been signed on at Liquid Intelligent Technologies.
• Pule, who has over 16 years of experience in telecom finances, resigned from Cell C in August.
• The new CFO at Liquid South Africa will begin in earnest on 1st February 2023.

The chief financial officer (CFO) of Cell C, Lerato Dipuo Phueginia Pule, has jumped ship to another African telecom group in Liquid Intelligent Technologies. Pule will serve as Liquid’s new CFO for its South African operations from next year February.

Pule served as CFO at the ailing Cell C since September 2022 according to her LinkedIn page, where she also served on its board of directors, and prior to this she served as the company’s head of financial planning, analysis and reporting. For the majority of her career, Pule worked at Telkom, and its subsidiary BCX across various roles involved with finances.

In August, Pule resigned from Cell C after less than a year at the company, according to a News24 report. No reason has been publically given.

“I am pleased to welcome Lerato to the executive team at Liquid South Africa. She is an accomplished and well-established CFO with an extensive understanding of the industry in which we operate. As a results-driven leader, she will be instrumental in overseeing Liquid South Africa’s financial strategy as the organisation continues to build on its vision of a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind while enhancing shareholder value,” shared Deon Geyser, CEO of Liquid Intelligent Technologies South Africa, in a press release sent to Hypertext.

According to Liquid, Pule is a qualified Chartered Accountant (CA(SA)) with a BCom Honours in Accounting and brings over 16 years of financial and business management experience to Liquid South Africa.

“Liquid is well known in the industry for bringing African solutions to African challenges through its intelligent technology offerings and resilient connectivity. I am excited about joining Liquid South Africa’s dynamic team, leading its local finance department, and contributing to its future success,” says Pule of her appointment at the pan-African tech firm.

Pule departs a Cell C that is working towards turning around many years worth of failures, capped by a R8.3 billion loss seen in 2019. In 2023 the telecom firm has embarked on widespread changes to its executive staff. Notable appointments include a new CEO in Jorge Mendes, who was previously working at rival Vodacom.

Two other former Vodacom executives jumped ship behind Mendes this year with Melanie Forbes, serving as marketing head, and Rachael Ayo-Oladejo as chief of staff. These appointments took place a month before Pule officially departed Cell C.

Meanwhile, Liquid, which operates thousands of kilometres worth of networking infrastructure across the African continent and several nations has been on an upwards trend. The latest saw its cloud and cybersecurity division, Liquid C2, sign a partnership with tech giant Google to leverage the American firm’s cloud technology.

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