• Openserve has a new chief commercial officer after it lost the previous one to rival Maziv.
• Previous managing executive of Telkom, Makgosi Mabaso will take the reins.
• A diehard Telkom veteran, Mabaso has been at the provider since 2010 and served across its businesses in a number of roles.

A major shakeup has occured at Telkom’s fibre arm Openserve. With the departure of previous chief commercial officer Phila Dube to rival Maziv, Telkom has looked internally for a replacement and have selected veteran executive Makgosi Mabaso.

Mabaso has been a Telkom diehard through and through, working at different Telkom arns since 2010 when she came on board as the senior IT manager. She becomes the new CCO of Openserve, effective 1st January.

“Makgosi is no stranger to Openserve or this position. Between 2018 and 2019, she successfully held the CCO role before moving to the Telkom Group CEO’s office, where she provided vital strategic support,” Openserve said in a press statement.

“Most recently, she served as managing executive for Telkom Business and Home Solutions within the Consumer Business Unit, where she played a critical role in delivering customer-centric solutions and driving operational excellence.”

Mabaso also saw a stint at BCX where she serves as Sales Managing Account Executive for just over a year. She also previously served at Openserve in 2018 as the managing executive for client services.

According to her LinkedIn, she was response for “building and managing relationships with clients, ensuring that they are satisfied with the products or services provided by the company,” at this time.

Mabaso moved quickly up the ranks, spending no more than three years in any respective spot across Telkom’s business. Most recently she served as Chief of Staff and then Managing Executive before heading to Openserve as the CCO.

“I am looking forward to driving our One Telkom strategy by leveraging synergies within the Group,” said Mabaso about her new role.

As for previous CCO, Dube, they head to Maziv which just recently announced an investment of R800 million to improve its huge fibre network across South Africa. The network reportedly spans 15 000km, which is difficult to maintain.

“We are seeing consistent and predictable improvements month on month,” says Dewald Booysen, chief operations officer at Maziv, which also owns Vumatel.

“We have drastically improved the time taken to repair customer faults while simultaneously delivering new circuits, conducting ongoing maintenance, and deploying new network architecture.”