Bhasin, who has been a non-executive director of CMC since June 2017, replaces Grant Walker, who stepped down from the chairman’s role last week.
Eric Kump, managing director of the Carlyle Group, CMC’s majority shareholder, said: “Rakesh’s global experience in the telecoms sector and his deep network will help CMC broaden its service offering and enter new geographies, as he has done in his previous roles at Colt and AT&T.”
Carl Grivner replaced Bhasin as CEO of Colt in September 2015. Bhasin had been in the role nine years having joined from KVH in Japan, which was also owned by the Fidelity pensions and investment group. KVH is now merged into Colt.
From 1993 to 1997 Bhasin was head of AT&T Asia Pacific’s managed network services business and he was president of AT&T Japan.
Bhasin said of his new appointment: “CMC is a hidden jewel of telecom industry and has a great platform to serve the networking needs of multinational customers in Africa and the Middle East.”
The Carlyle Group bought control of CMC for $100 million in February 2017. Walker remains a non-executive director and is described as a “considerable shareholder”.
