Pan African Towers appoints new directors

Pan African Towers Limited, a Nigerian provider of digital infrastructure, has announced the appointment of Jyoti Desai and Vivek Gupta as non-executive directors.

The firm disclosed in a statement that their appointment took effect on May 21, 2024.

With this appointment, Desai and Gupta join Adefolarin Ogunsanya, Daniel Adeoye, Marc Stoneham and Azeez Amida on the board of Pan African Towers.

Jyoti Desai, a former group chief operating officer of MTN, is a banking and telecoms professional with more than 35 years in the industry.

According to the firm, at Standard Bank and beyond, she has led major transformations in banking to cut costs and enhance customer focus.

It added that, with over 15 years in financial services and telecoms across Africa and the Middle East, she had a proven track record.

“With over 25 years of experience, Desai has driven significant transformations in banking and telecoms. Her expertise includes reducing operational costs, enhancing customer-centric strategies, and leading digital and large-scale projects. She has worked across Africa and the Middle East, with skills in startups, 3G, LTE, UMTS, and 5G,” the firm said.

It stated that Vivek Gupta, a first-generation entrepreneur, investor and telecoms veteran, is the founder and director of iSON Group.

He was said to have built a dynamic ecosystem of businesses in IT & ITeS, BPO and telecom infrastructure and services, employing 20,000+ resources, spanning 40 countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

“Gupta became an entrepreneur in 2008 as CEO of Zamil Infra, iSON’s first joint venture with the $8bn Saudi conglomerate, Zamil, which specializes in building and managing services for telecom passive infrastructure.

“Under Gupta’s leadership, iSON Group expanded into renewable energy, digital infrastructure, digital healthcare, and health insurance.

“With 20 years in telecom, including roles at Ericsson and IBM, he was named “IBM’s All-Star Salesman” in 2008 for securing over $5bn in business and executing groundbreaking deals with Bharti Airtel, Idea, and Vodafone,” Pan African Towers declared.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Pan African Towers, Azeez Amida, said, “As can be seen from their profiles, both Desai and Gupta’s extensive global experience, and their contributions to the advancement of telecommunication, technology and infrastructural development in Africa and beyond make them invaluable assets for us at Pan African Towers, especially at this point where we are on a continuous improvement drive across our operations within Nigeria, and with a vision to grow our digital infrastructure base.”