Manoj Kohli

Chief Executive Officer (International Operations), Bharti Airtel

Date of Birth: 1959

Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile services company, at last acquired long-coveted African assets when it completed the purchase of Zain's Africa operations for US$10.7 billion on 8 June. Bharti Airtel CEO Manoj Kohli has just wrapped up an inspection tour of its new assets, which make his company the world's fifth-largest mobile company in terms of subscribers.

Kohli will oversee African business from a new headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. During his July visit, he announced $150 mn. in investment over two years in Airtel's Kenya operations. Bharti has promised more than a billion dollars in investments across Africa. In October, Zain's operations in Burkina Faso, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Congo-Kinshasa, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia will be rebranded under the Airtel banner.

Born in 1959, Kohli holds a bachelor's degree in commerce, a diploma in law and a master's in business administration from Delhi University. He began his career at Delhi Cloth Mills in 1979. At Allied Signal/Honeywell, he was director of Indian operations from 1995 to 1997. He then moved to telecoms and joined Escotel Mobile Communications as CEO. He was headhunted in 2002 by Sunil Mittal, who made him President of Airtel's mobile services and then CEO in 2007.

After a punishing 2009 in which the company performed poorly and tortuous negotiations for the purchase of South Africa's MTN failed twice (AAC Vol 2 Nos 9 & 11), Airtel's management was tweaked. Kohli was tasked with focusing on international expansion, while Sanjay Kapoor became CEO of India and South Asia operations.