What’s Next – Telkom CEO Serame Taukobong discusses the company’s impressive fibre and data centre infrastructure

On this episode of What’s Next with Aki Anastasiou, Telkom Group CEO Serame Taukobong discusses the company’s evolution into an Infraco.

Taukobong studied at the University of Cape Town, where he completed a BSc degree in chemistry, and went on to study executive management courses at IMD in Switzerland, GIBS, INSEAD in Singapore, and the Wharton School of Business.

His first job was as a lab assistant at the Genref Refinery in Durban, where he earned R750 per month.

He then entered the commercial sector, joining Lever Brothers (now known as Unilever) as a marketing assistant.

He quickly rose to prominence in the business world, including as a marketing manager at SAB, and as the Chief Marketing Officer of M-Net.

Taukobong joined the ICT sector in 2004 when he was appointed MTN Uganda’s Chief Operations Officer, after which he worked in senior positions at MTN Irancell, MTN South Africa, and MTN Ghana.

In 2018, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer for Telkom’s consumer business, and he grew Telkom’s mobile business by over 300% before being appointed as the Telkom Group CEO in June 2022.

The interview

In this What’s Next interview, Taukobong provides an overview of how the South African telecommunications landscape has evolved in recent years.

He then unpacks Telkom’s impressive network infrastructure — both in terms of Openserve’s fibre network and Telkom Mobile’s network coverage — before explaining why Telkom has pursued an infrastructure play.

Taukobong also discusses the major telecommunications trends and opportunities he expects to see locally in 2024.

He concludes the interview by explaining how Telkom’s strategy for the future is focused on prioritising areas in which it is particularly strong – such as its fibre and data centre businesses.

The full interview with Serame Taukobong is below.