WIOCC continues African expansion

16 Apr 2013

Africa's carriers' carrier WIOCC is further strengthening its presence in Africa by bringing in three experienced senior telecoms industry professionals: Darren Bedford, from PCCW (formerly Gateway Communications); Martin Mutiiria, from Nokia Siemens Networks; and Jason Tutty from Reliance Globalcom.

In their new roles, Darren Bedford, WIOCC's new director of Africa Business Development; Martin Mutiiria, director: Sales for Africa at WIOCC; and Jason Tutty, WIOCC's new network planning and operations director will help carriers, telcos, network operators and ISPs across the continent to exploit WIOCC's unrivalled African network and end-to-end-managed wholesale connectivity.

L to R: Darren Bedford, Martin Mutiiria and Jason Tutty

Explaining the thinking behind these appointments, WIOCC CEO Chris Wood said: "We are seeing increasing demand from businesses for diversity-rich, high-speed international connectivity to and from Africa. We are expanding our business development and sales teams in Africa to meet this demand."

"The skills, experience and contacts that Darren, Martin and Jason bring will be invaluable in helping new and existing customers benefit from WIOCC's award-winning network, which seamlessly links 50 000km of African terrestrial fibre with multiple international submarine cables."

Their roles

As director of Africa Business Development, Bedford's responsibilities include planning and implementing business development strategies and expanding WIOCC's network coverage across the region.

In this new role as director of sales for Africa, Mutiiria is responsible for growing WIOCC's customer base through direct and indirect sales of products and services in Africa. As well as prospecting, customer acquisition and retention, customer relationship management of WIOCC's 14 African telco shareholders will also be an important focus for Martin.

Tutty has also taken on a new role of network planning and operations director, in which he is responsible for planning and managing resilient, end-to-end connectivity for WIOCC's expanding number of carrier customers.