Tag: Axiata

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Axiata Group announced that Dato’ Izzaddin Idris will step down from his position as president and group CEO effective May 31, 2022. The board has appointed Dr Hans Wijayasuria, CEO of telecommunications business and group EVP of Axiata, as well as Vivek Sood, group CFO of Axiata, as interim joint acting group CEOs effective June 1, 2022. They will retain their current positions and portfolios. The stepping down of Idris is based on the mutual cessation of his service contract between him and Axiata.

Tan Sri Shahril Ridza Ridzuan, chairman of Axiata, said, “The board thanks Idris for his wisdom, leadership and contributions in steering Axiata over the past two years. He took the helm on January 1, 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 crisis, after serving as deputy group CEO since January 2020. He has been instrumental in shaping Axiata’s strategic response to secure stability and business continuity in the face of daunting and unprecedented challenges across many aspects of our operations.”

Ridzuan adds on the appointment of joint group CEOs, saying, “The board assures all our stakeholders that Axiata has always had a strong culture of succession planning and we are committed to ensuring a smooth transition and preserving the momentum Axiata has achieved thus far with the Axiata 5.0 Vision. The appointment of Wijayasuria and Sood as joint acting Group CEOs will ensure continuity in this situation.”

Ridzuan said that with the appointment of Wijayasuria and Sood as joint group CEOs, Axiata has two industry stalwarts who are very familiar with Axiata’s businesses and they are both strongly grounded in our culture and deeply committed to the success of our ventures.

According to the company, the board does not expect to make additional structural or senior leadership changes in the near term.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Multinational Malaysian telecommunications company Axiata has recently appointed advertising company dentsu in Malaysia as its creative agency of record, effective by December this year.

The agency was tasked by Axiata in building its brand equity aligned to its strategic purpose of ‘Advancing Asia’, which is the company’s objective of being the best in the region in terms of innovation, connectivity and talent. Furthermore, dentsu will be providing end-to-end communications support for Axiata to strengthen its reputation with key stakeholders across the region.

Axiata’s appointment of dentsu Malaysia comes in retrospect of the need to elevate its growth as a trusted regional brand, its brand plans will require a targeted mix of campaigns focused on technology and innovation thought leadership, employer branding, good governance, credibility, sustainability, diversity, nation-building, and digital inclusion.

Kunal Roy, CEO of dentsu Creative, said, “We feel deeply honored and privileged to partner with a client that is so alike in our values and our purpose; we look forward to bringing alive Axiata’s purpose of ‘Advancing Asia’ with meaningful innovation and experiences. As Axiata continues to champion progress across Asia, dentsu is committed to partnering with Axiata using creativity as a force for lasting good everywhere, in every way.”

Meanwhile, Dato’ Izzaddin Idris, president and Group CEO at Axiata, commented, “As one of the largest diversified telco groups serving emerging markets in Asia, Axiata is well-positioned and anchored to support digital inclusion and progress in a time when governments, businesses, and societies turn to technology and digital innovation to drive recovery and growth. We look forward to dentsu’s best work to support our regional momentum and aspirations as The Next Generation Digital Champion by 2024.”

For Kien Eng Tan, CEO of dentsu Malaysia, they are thrilled to win Axiata’s mandate, which is not only a recognition of their creative excellence but a demonstration of how the agency can deliver impactful ideas, through a strong collaboration with their client.

“We look forward to leveraging our inclusive Consumer Vision 2030 to unlock opportunities for growth through integrated solutions that are real-time, data-driven and tech-enabled. I am proud of our team, the work we do is our people’s mission and pride — each employee at dentsu is fearless in embracing the invitation to the never before,” Tan concluded.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Axiata Enterprise, the business-to-business (B2B) arm of Malaysia-based telecommunications group Axiata, has announced a partnership with Google Cloud in order to help accelerate digital adoption across companies and small-medium businesses (SMBs) across Asia.

The implementation will come in the form of offering Google Workspace as part of their integrated ICT portfolio and solution bundles to small and medium businesses (SMBs). Telecoms across Axiata’s group will spearhead the implementation, with Dialog in Sri Lanka leading the initiative, and with implementation scheduled for Q2 this year.

This will be followed by Celcom in Malaysia, XL in Indonesia, Robi in Bangladesh, Ncell in Nepal, and Smart in Cambodia by the second half of the year.

Axiata’s digital telcos will also continue to leverage Google Cloud’s core compute, storage, and networking capabilities to modernize their infrastructure and drive their digital transformation initiatives. 

Said initiative comes in retrospect to the fact that Asia is home to over one million SMBs all looking for the best possible way to tap the immense opportunities in some of the world’s fastest growing Internet economies. Axiata’s controlling interests in six mobile operators cover over 157 million mobile subscribers across its footprint. 

“Axiata and Google Cloud have a shared vision of helping businesses digitize and grow as they build greater resilience for the long haul. With nations increasingly stepping up on digitalization for economic recovery and growth, we stand at a critical juncture to support businesses, especially small and medium players in their efforts to adjust and adapt to new digital norms for survival,” said Gopi Kurup, CEO at Axiata Enterprise.

He also added that the power of Google Cloud’s advanced technologies combined with Axiata’s market intelligence enables companies to access advanced tools to boost their collaboration and productivity and generate data-based insights to strengthen their evolving customer engagement strategies.

Celcom, which is under the Axiata Group, is leveraging Google Cloud’s infrastructure and solutions as well to run its payment gateway and advance its modern digital customer journey. The Malaysian telco also has plans to use Google Cloud’s AI tools to build personalization and recommendation models to further enhance customer experience. 

Ruma Balasubramanian, managing director of Google Cloud in Southeast Asia, said, “To resource-strapped SMBs, cloud technology is a game-changer that enables them to compete with larger players in the market. We’re thrilled to partner with Axiata to accelerate the digital transformation of millions of companies in the region, and help them solve their complex business and technology challenges.”