Dubai, UAE: As it enters a new phase of growth, du, the fastest-growing telecommunications company in the region, announces Farid Faraidooni as Chief Operations Officer (COO), with Fahad Al Hassawi stepping into the position of Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). Both appointments will be effective as of 1 June, 2013. Prior to this new role, Faraidooni held the position of Chief Commercial Officer, while Al Hassawi moves to his new role from his earlier position as Chief Human Resources & Shared Services Officer.

Since inception, du has consistently delivered superior services to its customers, thereby creating better returns and value to all its stakeholders. Eager to build on its success as one of the fastest-growing telecoms in the Arab world for the past years, du is strengthening its foundation and driving efficiencies in whatever it does, keeping in mind ever-changing customer behaviours and transforming business models with emerging new forms of competition in the digital space.

“On behalf of the Board, I would like to congratulate Farid and Fahad on their new roles. As members of a strong leadership team, they will drive our company through this exciting new phase of growth and into the future. This year, we will focus on maximizing shareholder returns and share equity while meeting stakeholder expectations, improving productivity and profitability,” said Ahmad Bin Byat, Chairman, du. “As both Farid and Fahad demonstrate, we are proud of our Emiratisation programmes and are keen to nurture and reward UAE national talent, by providing them with stimulating, challenging opportunities to work in the private sector. I wish them all the best in their new roles.”

Osman Sultan, CEO, du, said: “We are entering our next phase of business, and in preparation for this we are focusing on providing challenging opportunities for the next generation of Emirati leadership to step up and guide our company to further success. Within our company we are cultivating a culture of opportunity, through which we are nurturing talented UAE nationals by offering them experience within different leadership roles. This will encourage a more dynamic, multi-faceted approach as our company continues to develop and grow in the years to come.”

du has recently put in place a new organisation structure that is built on the following features:

• Sharpen leadership focus on segments to deliver enhanced value to various needs of customers. B2B and B2C departments are elevated in the organisation to bring customer-centric tailor-made value adding products to both Consumers and Businesses in the UAE.
• Deliver enhanced value to customers by further improving the efficiencies. An Operations division has been created, consolidating all pillars that enable end-to-end customer delivery and drive efficiencies. The Operations division will integrate Operations Planning, Product Engineering, IT, Network, Customer Operations, and Technology Security Risk and Fraud Management under one business vertical.
• du has always believed in building the best capabilities to service its customers. To achieve this objective, the company has constantly hired talented employees and aligned with global partners to bring superior expertise and efficiency in delivering its services and products. du will continue to pursue these efforts. Some of the global partners that du has engaged with in this regard since 2011 include Alcatel Lucent, Huawei, Ericsson, IBM and TCS.
• du is committed to contributing to the vision of UAE leadership in nurturing, hiring, developing and promoting Emirati talent. In a continuation of this journey, du is further investing in its in-house UAE National employees to create future leaders. The company has enhanced its efforts in hiring more Emirati talent, which have already placed du at 32percentage Emiratisation, with 42percentage in senior management positions. du is committed to enhancing these efforts and improving Emiratisation levels increasing the percentage of Emiratis 3percentage year on year.

Other significant movement within the organisation sees Hatem Bamatraf appointed as Executive Vice President, Enterprise; Saleem Albalooshi appointed as Executive Vice President, Customer Operations, and Acting Vice President, Network Development and Operations, Walid Kamal appointed as Senior Vice President, Information Technology and Marwan Bin Dalmook appointed as Vice President, Technology Security, Risk and Fraud Management.

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