She takes over from Freddie Mokoena, who had been CEO of MTN Guinea-Bissau since September 2013.
MTN group president and CEO Ralph Mupita said: “I would like to welcome Eliane to the MTN family and look forward to her taking MTN Guinea-Bissau to new heights, as we work to lead digital solutions for Africa’s progress.”
MTN said it has 900,000 customers in Guinea-Bissau, a country with a population of 1.92 million. Its sole competitor in Guinea-Bissau is Orange.
Houphouet-Boigny (pictured) has a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and a master’s in strategic management from the École des hautes études commerciales (HEC) business school in Paris.
She’s worked as a consultant for PwC and BearingPoint, and since 2012 has been at Nestlé’s central and west Africa operation, latterly as head of business transformation.
MTN has not said where her predecessor is moving, but Mupita commented: “I’d like to take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to Freddie. He has done an amazing job in leading the team over the past eight years. Freddie steered the team through a period of amazing growth, and I am deeply thankful for his invaluable guidance and contribution to MTN.”
