SEGMENT HEADS

Panagiotis (Pedro) Christofides

Chief operating officer: South African distribution
BCom, BCompt (UNISA)

After completing his accounting articles at Combanis and Associates, Pedro moved into the business world, where he began his career as the owner and manager of eleven retail outlets in the food and beverage industry.

In 1998 Pedro founded Comm Express, which quickly grew into a leading distributor of prepaid airtime. Pedro headed up Matragon (holding company of Comm Express) as the chief executive officer. In 2008 Pedro was appointed COO of the South African distribution segment and is responsible for the management, coordination and business activities of this segment.

Bradley Turkington

Chief operating officer: International distribution
BSoc Sci (Finance Hons) (Natal)

After completing his postgraduate degree in finance, Bradley became the financial director of a London-based wholesaler.
Bradley returned to South Africa after four years abroad and with the international relationships he had established became involved in the South African cellular telephony industry from inception. Bradley served on the local board of a NASDAQ listed company, which was involved in bringing prepaid to South Africa and many other markets. He joined a subsidiary of Matragon as a consultant in March 2006, to expand their international business. Bradley was responsible for formulating Blue Label Investment's international strategy prior to listing. In November 2007 he was appointed COO of the international distribution segment and is responsible for all the international business operations and initiatives.

Dr David Fraser

Group chief technology officer
BSc(Eng), MSc(Eng), PhD (Natal), CEng(UK), MIET(UK),
MIEEE(USA), MSAIEE(SA), MSPE

David is a professional engineer who has considerable international and local business experience in telecommunications, IT and associated technologies. After qualifying, David lectured and researched communications at university after which he established a number of successful companies, including a telecoms and broadcasting services company and a scientific consultancy firm.
David's know-how in the broadband wireless and related businesses has assisted in the establishment and growth of several European and USA-based companies. David became involved at Sentech in South Africa with the development of the country's first public broadband 3G wireless data network, and joined Blue Label Investments in 2005. Together with Dr Angelo Roussos, David is responsible for the development of integrated core technology solutions for the group, with an emphasis on the conceptualisation and implementation of cutting-edge mobile and media solutions. David is also involved with business development at Blue Label Telecoms and maintaining key relationships with the group's partners, such as Microsoft.

Dr Angelo Roussos

Group chief information officer
BSc (Lab. Med.), MBBCh (Wits)

Angelo became interested in high-speed networking and supercomputing while pursuing a postgraduate medical degree, collaborating on the NSFNet, a precursor to the modern internet. In 1990, he established one of the first companies in South Africa to provide e-mail services, and later the second SA business to provide commercial internet services. With his partners, he created one of the largest ISPs in SA in 1994. In 1998, Angelo left medicine to focus full-time on IP-networking, and he formed InfoSat which was the second company in the world to offer DVB/IP services via satellite. Sentech, the largest signal distributor in Africa, acquired a majority stake in InfoSat. From July 2002 until October 2003, Angelo guided Sentech as group executive: Multimedia Services and was responsible for the technology selection, business strategy and business management of the new multimedia business. Apart from his extensive IPbased telecoms experience, Angelo has engaged in strategic, policy and regulatory representations to the SA government and regulator. Together with Dr David Fraser, Angelo is responsible for ensuring that the group remains ahead of the trend through the development of new and innovative technology solutions, with a focus on the transactional side of the business.

Craig Ireland

Chief executive officer: Value-added services
(Datacel)
BCom (Natal)

Craig has been in the telecommunication and technology industry for over 16 years, having spent 12 years with Dimension Data, one of South Africa's largest ITC companies. While at Dimension Data Craig headed up a number of strategic divisions including their call centre division. He spent four years developing the local call centre technology market in South Africa. In 2006 he assisted the Business Trust and the Department of Trade and Industry in the development of a business plan for South Africa's outsourcing and BPO market. At the same time he established Velociti, a call centre outsourcing business, based in Durban South Africa. Craig is responsible for the group's national call centre businesses.