Karl Toriola is the current CEO of MTN Nigeria. Born in Ile-Ife, Osun State, the Electrical/Electronics graduate from OAU, Ile-Ife with Masters degree in Communication Systems from the University of Wales, the United Kingdom, boasts of over 25 years of experience in Oil and Gas, Strategy and Management Consulting, as well as the Telecommunications industry. Chiemelie Ezeobi reports that with this new position, there are high expectations from the boardroom guru, which he is bent on living up to by connecting Nigerians one city at a time, but not without touching lives of the users
“Mindful of the unique responsibility we have to keep Nigeria and Nigerians connected to the people they love and the information, services, and technology they need, we will continue to invest in the resilience of our network, accelerating the expansion of our 4G coverage and rural connectivity programme.”
Those above words are the ethos and guiding force behind the key strategic directives of the current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) MTN Nigeria, Karl Olutokun Toriola.
As the new CEO of MTN Nigeria, one of the largest telecommunications networks, he took over from Ferdi Moolman on March 1, 2021 to call the shots at the network infrastructure with its over 80 million subscribers as of July 2020 according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Goal
One of the major goals he has set upon assumption of office is to ensure the company makes the lives of its millions of customers better than they met it, beyond just connecting their lines to actually touching their lives through the numerous corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects they carry out nationwide.
Continuity
As CEO, he is now tasked with sustaining the numerous successes he met at MTN Nigeria. In fact, at a recent virtual gathering at the NSE closing gong event, he opined that he hopes to drive share price and in essence deliver a stronger and deeper stakeholder relationship, thus sustaining the company on the growth trajectory he met on ground.
Commitment to MTN
In the capacity of his new role, he has continuously reiterated his commitment to take MTN higher, which he has set to achieve with his many programmes, one of which is the MTN Revv Programme, an initiative by MTN that brings SMEs together under the mentorship of top business executives and industry experts to relearn, rethink and retool their businesses for growth in the nation’s digital economy.
Targeting Underserved Communities
For Toriola, the underserved communities are important in the scheme of things. At the Annual General Meeting (AGM), which took place on Monday, June 7, 2021, the company announced that it was extending telecommunications coverage to millions living in underserved and unserved communities across Nigeria. This initiative is run under its rural telephony programme.
Already, MTN has impacted the lives of 20 million Nigerians living in areas that do not have access or have little access to Internet coverage. The company, under Toriola, has again identified more than 3,000 locations across Nigeria, where it would roll out coverage over the next three years.
Currently, more than 583 live rural sites have been installed across the country. More than half of these were installed in 2020, during the initial rollout. Some of these rural sites include Kurba in Bauchi State, Agbiyi Umuede in Abia State, Tobolo in Ogun state, Tudun Faila in Sokoto State, Uzo Uwani in Enugu state amongst many others.
Living up to its brand slogan ‘Everywhere you go’, MTN plans to install more than 1,000 new sites every year. Staying on course, the company hopes to have completed the full rollout at the end of 2022, covering all the locations it Identified.
“Together, we are deploying infrastructure that will accelerate connectivity and aid the consistent rollout of low-cost connectivity solutions in these areas that have non-existence or limited network coverage and broadband services,” the company stated.
Academic Laurels
Born in Ile-Ife, Osun State, he had his primary, secondary and university education within the walls of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in the state. After graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical/Electronics from OAU, Ile-Ife, Osun State, he also earned a Master of Science Degree in Communication Systems from the University of Wales, the United Kingdom.
A firm believer in self development, he also completed several programmes at INSEAD, Singapore; Wharton Business School, USA; London Business School, UK; Harvard Business School, USA; and Institute of Management Development (IMD), Switzerland.
Also in his kitty is the Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (FNSE), as well as a membership of the Council of Registered Engineers of Nigeria (COREN) and the Institute of Directors (IoD).
Growth Trajectory
To many who know, Toriola’s career trajectory was certainly not a flash in the pan as he has grown through the ranks in MTN in particular and the telecommunications industry in general.
Before joining MTN, he spent three years as ELS Manager at Ericsson, and another three years at Econet (which later became VMobile and afterwards Zain). He left in 2006 to join MTN, where he spent the first five years as Chief Transformation Officer. He would later become the Non-executive Director in Benin Republic, Cameroun and afterwards CEO MTN Congo. He was also CEO MTN Cameroun; Group Operations Executive and Vice President, West and Central Africa. All these were before his present appointment as CEO of MTN Nigeria in 2021.
Aside from his successes in the telecommunications industry, Toriola has over 25 years of experience in Strategy and Management Consulting, Oil & Gas and the Telecommunications industry. All these he got from working at conglomerates like Bain & Company Inc., South Africa; Mercer Management Consulting, San Francisco; and Schlumberger in their Gabon, Nigeria and Indonesia offices.
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