Kaan Terzioglu, the former CEO of Turkish operator Turkcell (pictured), was elected to Veon’s board of directors as the company aims to benefit from his experience in digital services.

The appointment adds to Veon’s existing 11-member board, all of which were re-elected, and sees Terzioglu join current Veon CEO Ursula Burns and Russian business tycoon Mikhail Fridman, among others, on the operator’s senior executive team.

In a statement, the company hailed Terzioglu’s considerable “experience in mobile telecommunications and the Eurasian market”, pointing to his four year stint as CEO of Turkcell, during which he led the charge in launching a number of new digital services.

Commenting on Twitter, Terzioglu said Veon was “one of the handful of companies to understand the value of digitalisation early on”.

As well as his role at Turkcell, Terzioglu was also a board member at industry association GSMA and served on an advisory board of the World Economic Forum focusing on the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

He was nominated to join Veon’s board last month.

Veon added shareholders had also approved the appointment of accounting company PricewaterhouseCoopers as its independent auditors.