VG Somasekhar: Here is why Airtel Uganda Managing Director resigned

Airtel Uganda has today Thursday March 5, 2020 announced the departure of VG Somasekhar, the Managing Director effective 31 March, 2020.

According to the telecommunication company, Somasekhar expressed his desire to move to India, where he will continue to be associated with the Bharti Airtel Group, which was granted.

“Soma has helped build Airtel Uganda Limited into a strong brand and into the company that it is today. He has been instrumental in rolling out our 4G across the country. He has demonstrated great maturity in dealing with all stakeholders and provided robust leadership to the team in Uganda,” said Raghunath Mandava, CEO of Airtel Africa in a statement.

“Whilst we will miss him, we thank him for his enormous contribution and wish him the very best in his future endeavors. His successor will be announced in due course.”

Somasekhar rejoined Airtel Africa in August 2017, after an earlier stint in Uganda between 2010 and 2014.

“Somasekhar expresses his sincere gratitude to the staff of Airtel Uganda, partners, regulators, government and customers for the opportunity they have given him during his tenure as Managing Director Airtel Uganda.”

Who is VG Somasekhar?

Bharti Airtel in December 2010 appointed V.G Somasekhar, then with over 15 years’ experience in telecoms to lead the Airtel Uganda operation, then the second biggest telecom company, albeit loss making.

In April 2013, Somasekhar would lead the acquisition of equally loss-making Warid Telecom for a reported $120 million and the subsequent merger into a stronger No.2 with a turnover of UGX505 billion at end of 2013 versus MTN’s UGX1 trillion.

Somasekhar then left in February 2014 and following some assignments within the Bharti Airtel Group, he returned in September 2017 to lead a now much bigger Airtel, then with nearly UGX1.16 trillion in turnover and UGX245 billion in net profit as at end of 2017.

By end of 2018 Airtel’s turnover grew 5% from UGX1.16 trillion in 2017 to UGX1.21 trillion and net profit grew much healthier- an impressive 38%- from UGX245 billion to UGX338.1 billion ahead of MTN’s UGX220 billion on a gross UGX1.6 trillion in revenue, making Airtel, Uganda’s most profitable telecom company.