Three Execs Join Starcomms top Rank

Starcomms Plc, Nigeria’s largest 3G CDMA operators has announced the appointment of three senior management staff.
The new staff are Mrs. Charlotte Courtenay chief finance director, Mr. Tushar Maheshwari, chief commercial officer and Mr. Lalit Verma, chief technical officer respectively.
Mrs. Courtenay a BA holder in Politics, Philosophy & History and a UK chartered Management Accountant has over 15 years work experience in a cross section of organizations. This spans various capacities in Telecommunication and other Sectors.
Prior to her appointment in Starcomms, she was the finance director, Zain Communications Ghana. Other positions that she has held include, Finance Director, ED & F, Man Ltd subsidiary in Ivory Coast, Chief Financial Officer for Millicom International Cellular SA subsidiaries in Senegal, Sierra Leone & Democratic Republic of Congo.
She is responsible for account management and return on investment.
Maheshwari, the new commercial officer, has over 20 years work experience, out of which 13 years have been in blue chip telecom companies in Africa, Asia and South Central Asia. His distinguished career is highlighted by strong management and operating performance, and an impressive record of commercial and business development contributions.
He has in-depth experience across all core business functions and history of success in launching new telecom networks and consolidating existing ones. Tushar was appointed chief commercial officer (CCO) of Starcomms, Nigeria’s largest 3G CDMA operators in August 2009.
He’s responsible for the development and implementation of the company’s overall commercial strategies and realization of revenue targets. Before joining Starcomms, he was the chief commercial officer at Warid Telecom Uganda, a start up Telecommunication Company where he launched GSM/WIMAX services and established a nationwide brand, increased market share in a short span of time. During his tenure the company received many awards for innovation and customer service.
He has also held senior marketing positions at Airtel in India where he rolled out new networks in the shortest possible time and his key focus has been on ensuring that revenue targets and corporate goals are achieved without compromising the company’s excellent reputation and brand, and creating a culture that is adaptable to ever-changing business environments while improving efficiency and customer focus. Tushar holds an MBA from Institute of Management Technology, one of India’s top 10 business schools and a Bachelors of Commerce from Delhi University. He has attended various senior management programs at leading institutions. He is a speaker of international repute and has been invited to speak in leading conferences like AfricaComm, GSM Middle east, GSM World Congress and leaders in Telecom
While Verma, the new chief technical officer, a B.Tech (1st Class with distinction) from Delhi College of Engineering and M.Tech (Integrated Electronics & Circuits) from IIT-Delhi is a veteran of telecom business with over 30 years of experience holding key positions. These includes; Business CTO at Reliance Infratel, Senior Vice President – Corporate Planning at Reliance Communications, Senior General Manager – Technical (CDMA Business) at LG India and deputy general manager – Business Development at Escorts Communications.
He has championed pioneering assignments in Strategic Analysis and recommendations on key regulatory policies related to Spectrum, MNP, 3G etc and its business impact. He provided Business Development in end to end solutions in new operators for nation-wide launch through NW infrastructure sharing.
He was also involved in new technology induction and capacity enhancements using spectral efficient techniques. He drove & institutionalized NW benchmarking process on syndicated basis with involvement of other operators for larger industry acceptability and harnessing cost-benefit advantage. He implemented Opex reduction through energy savings. Verma is responsible for technology planning, budgeting, implementation and operations. He facilitates CEO/MD to define business objectives, best practices, and/or set future technology directions.
Speaking on the appointment, Mr. Maher Qubain, chief executive officer, Starcomms Plc, stated that the appointments were necessitated by the continued desire of company to enhance service quality and ensure return on investments to shareholders.