| Wednesday, February 24 9.00 am- 10.30 am |  | Chris Gabriel
CEO, Zain Africa
Commencing December 1, 2007 Chris Gabriel was appointed CEO of Zain Africa overseeing all Zain's 15 operations in Africa which currently serve over 40 million active customers, representing two-thirds of Zain's total customer base. Previous to this appointment, Chris was Chief Officer of ACE, from May 2007, where he was accountable for defining, executing and delivering Zain’s Global ACE Strategy (Accelerate, Consolidate and Expand); leading and managing the Group’s international and regional IPO’sBusiness Transformation and Performance Improvement.
Prior to joining Zain, Chris has played vital roles as Interim Chief Executive, Group Chief Financial Officer and Group Chief Information Officer in several regional telecom companies.
In addition, Chris was the Director, Finance for SingTel Optus Business in Australia. Major achievements during his time with SingTel Optus include delivering profitable double digit revenue growth at rates three to four times market; more than 30 percent improvement in delivery cycle times; more than 50 percent reduction in unit operating costs; and successful integration of the Singapore Telecom and Optus global Network organisations.
Chris has over 25 years experience in the Information Technology and Communications sectors, having developed his strategic, managerial and financial expertise through a wide variety of roles spanning Financial Management, Business Process Engineering, Customer Care and Billing, Product Development, Commercial Operations, Facilities, Strategic Programs, Year 2000 Remediation, Information Technology and Corporate Acquisitions. He has previously held senior executive positions with Ericsson, Unisys and ComputerLand. |
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Erich Roberts
Former CIO MTN South Africa, Senior Consultant, Huawei Technologies
Erich Roberts has over 30 years experience in the IT industry and mobile Telco industry and served as the head of IT in MTN for 1998 until 2009. He is passionate about providing an enhanced customer experience. He served as a director of MTN Uganda and of iTalk. Erich currently manages Dromedare a consulting company, and invited by Huawei as the senior consultant dedicated for the African telecom market.
|  | Martin Creaner
President and CTO, TM Forum
Martin Creaner has been working in the Telecommunications Industry for 25 years and is currently President of the TM Forum. TM Forum is the world’s leading industry association focused on improving business effectiveness for service providers and their suppliers. It has over 700 member companies in over 180 countries including all the major fixed and mobile Network Operators and all the leading equipment and software Vendors.
Prior to joining the TM Forum Martin held a number of executive positions with Motorola, and British Telecom.
Martin advises the boards of a number of telecoms companies, and is the Chairman of Selatra Ltd., which is a mobile content Service Provider.
Martin is widely published and is featured and quoted regularly in business and trade journals. Martin is also the author of the leading OSS/BSS book “NGOSS Distilled”.
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