Marais joined Liquid Telecom in 2015, when he served as CEO for South Africa. Before that he was CCO for SEACOM, leading the sales, product, marketing and commercial teams. He has also held various senior management positions in the ICT, media and telecoms industries, including the Siemens group.
In this new position, Marais will continue to lead the wholesale data business in the areas of sales and product management for mobile and fixed line operators, global carriers, services providers and OTTs. But his responsibilities will expand to include group business development, focusing on new market growth, strategic partnerships, large infrastructure projects and growth through acquisition.
Speaking on the new appointment Nic Rudnick, group CEO for Liquid Telecom, said: “As Liquid Telecom expands its offering across Africa, we are finding new opportunities to become closer to our customers and support them through their digital journey with more value-added services. In his new role, Willem will help us to identify and target those opportunities where we can add the most value.”
The news comes as Liquid Telecom invests in and further utilises its fibre footprint, which stretches over 50,000km. Appointments of this kind, the company has said will ‘provide additional management support’ during this period. In addition, by providing more value-added services, Liquid says it ‘is delivering on its vision of building Africa’s digital future’.
Commenting on his new role, Marais said: “Liquid Telecom’s network and data centre infrastructure is an enabler of digital disruption and innovation in Africa. In my new role, I’m looking forward to building on our current capabilities, finding new ways to collaborate with the wider technology and telecoms ecosystem to bring about further digital transformation and providing focused and value-added services to our customers.”
