Some of the countries with the highest use of digital currencies using mobile phones are African – just one example of how mobile connectivity is helping economic development and transforming lives. One of the leading enablers is MTN, the South Africa-based, and Africa’s largest mobile network operator, with nearly 300 million subscribers in 18 countries.
Chief Human Resources Officer at the MTN Group is Paul Norman, who was also responsible for Corporate Affairs at one point in time. He is a veteran at MTN, having joined in 1997, and credits his EMBA at IMD with helping develop his general business knowledge and awareness. Particularly influential was the teaching on the role of a high-performance board of directors. After qualifying, he recommended IMD to offer consulting advice, resulting in a step-change improvement in quality and depth at the board level. Another “eye-opener” was meeting customers through an EMBA assignment and hearing about their challenges – actual MTN customers, in line with the IMD principle of real world, real learning.
In addition to the substantive business knowledge gleaned through the EMBA, a key learning that continues to shape his approach to leadership was a subtle discipline.
“One of the things that totally surprised me was the art of asking a good question,” he says. “Up until then, I always thought you needed to have smart answers. I’m always impressed when a question is asked that I never thought about, that opens a door.”
This ability, or disposition perhaps, is more than a matter of personal style; it reflects an innovative mindset, essential for a strong business culture. Good questions often concern the points that are easily overlooked. In an M&A transaction, for example, after the financial logic is determined, other questions may be: What does this mean for customers? Can the cultures be merged?
He recalls Professor Phil Rosenzweig as a role-model, because “he always asked some of the most incisive questions in the classroom.”
“Everybody deserves the benefits of a modern, connected life”
Paul’s one mildly humbling experience on the EMBA was being asked to redo an assignment on the subject of leadership and self-awareness, a topic that is close to his training as a psychologist and specialisation as an HR professional – he’s also a non-executive director at Shoprite, Africa’s largest retailer. In the spirit of continual learning, he decided to treat the request as an opportunity. “It got me on a path of really deep reflection, and in many ways actually helped me, I think, to grow greater awareness and become a better leader over time.”
He has been at the heart of strategic discussions about both expansion and diversification at MTN. Strategic opportunities arose in the early 2000s because, although there were many multinational telecoms companies investing in Africa, they would invest in the minimum infrastructure and then seek to extract short-term value.
“They would install the minimum base stations to get some basic coverage, then supply the service and extract the funds. Whereas when we came in, we said: We are here to stay. We are African. We’re going to build out the entire country. We invested to prioritise the quality of the network. And because we are there for the long haul, we didn’t take the money out initially, we reinvested.”
MTN leapfrogged other firms technologically, by installing the GSM standard at a time when many other networks were still on the legacy CDMA.
“One of the things that totally surprised me was the art of asking a good question”
With the mobile phone market maturing, running the network has become commoditised, but MTN has diversified to become a platform-based technology multinational. It launched a successful Fintech business, which is probably one of the largest digital banking services on the continent. It is being spun off and has attracted investment from Mastercard. MTN also developed a messaging service called ayoba, as well as an infrastructure subsidiary, Bayobab.
“What I’m busy with now is supporting organizational transformation to enable the realisation of our strategic ambitions. Among our priorities, we are reviewing our operating model to understand the businesses in the context of a fast-changing macro environment, in particular. What does this mean for skills, for culture? Because each of these businesses is different. They need different things, yet they’re connected.”
History and demographics are on the side of tech firms in Africa. By 2050, he notes, most of the youth in the world, who have grown up in the digital age, will be African.
Technology can provide greater access not only to banking, but other services such as health and education. “Our purpose [at MTN] is that we believe everybody deserves the benefits of a modern, connected life.”
There is an historical neatness to the trajectory of MTN’s rise, and Paul’s career. The company was founded in 1994, the first year of democracy for South Africa after years of apartheid, and Paul joined just three years later. Political reform is not enough on its own to ensure greater opportunities for citizens. You also need strong businesses – and business leaders: the kind of leaders who can ask the right questions, before coming up with answers.
