MTN recruited Stephen van Coller to run its Strategy and Mergers and Acquisitions unit, with the appointment designed to support its efforts in enterprise, financial services and media and entertainment.

Van Coller, most recently CEO of corporate and investment bank Barclays Africa Group, will start his new role on 1 October 2016, joining as the fourth VP of the group.

In a statement released today, MTN said it is confident that van Coller’s appointment “will be instrumental in helping the group realise its ambitions and commitments”, with the company looking into expansion across mobile financial services, media and entertainment.

For the most part of the last year, the company has been dealing with a row with the Nigerian government, which initially ordered it to pay $5.2 billion for failing to register almost 5.1 million subscribers using its network.

After months of negotiations, it settled to pay a reduced $1.7 billion in fines, and last month also announced the appointment of Vodafone’s Rob Shuter as its new CEO, as it begins to move on from the dispute.

CFO leaves
In another management shake-up, MTN also announced today that Brett Goschen, the group’s CFO, will leave the company after 14 years at the end of September “to pursue other interests”. Gunter Engling, the current CEO of MTN Rwanda, will assume the position on a temporary basis.

The company added that the “process of reviewing its capacity resources, governance and management structures will be substantially completed by the year end”.