MTN appoints Lwazi Bam as Group Chief Risk Officer

MTN Group has named former Deloitte Africa chief executive Lwazi Bam as its incoming Group Chief Risk Officer. Bam joins the pan-African operator on 1 June 2026, replacing Ferdi Moolman, who moved to lead MTN South Africa in November 2025.

The appointment was announced on 24 April 2026 and places Bam on MTN’s Group Executive Committee, with responsibility for enterprise-wide risk management and compliance across the operator’s footprint.

From Deloitte Africa to MTN’s risk seat

Bam is a chartered accountant who built two decades of senior leadership experience in regulated environments before stepping down as CEO of Deloitte Africa. His board service spans Standard Bank Group and Standard Bank South Africa, ZEDA Limited, Valterra Platinum, Woolworths, and the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA), where he sat on risk and audit committees in close engagement with regulators and supervisory bodies. The combination of consultancy-executive experience and direct board-level risk-committee exposure is uncommon, and it positions him to bridge external regulatory dialogue with internal enterprise-risk discipline.

“He brings strong leadership and experience leading large, complex businesses across multiple markets, combined with deep understanding of risk, regulatory and governance frameworks,” MTN Group president and chief executive Ralph Mupita said in a statement.

Inheriting a complex risk portfolio

The Group Chief Risk Officer role at MTN is one of the more demanding risk seats on the continent. The operator is integrating its $2.2 billion acquisition of IHS Towers, announced in February 2026, which adds tower-infrastructure risk to a portfolio that already spans GSM and 5G operations across markets with sharply different regulatory and currency regimes.

MTN has also stepped up partnerships in AI-native mobile networking and satellite connectivity over the past year, each carrying its own regulatory and operational risk profile. Recent moves include the Open Data Centre’s $45 million AI-RAN initiative with NVIDIA, Cisco and Nokia and MTN Zambia’s industry-first Starlink Direct-to-Cell trial. MTN’s previous expansion of its risk function was the 2022 appointment of a fintech-specific chief risk officer for its mobile-money business, reflecting a pattern of segmenting risk leadership by line of business as the group has scaled.

What’s on Bam’s desk in June

Bam’s first months are likely to focus on the IHS Towers integration and the continued execution of MTN’s Ambition 2030 strategy, which the group launched alongside its record 2025 financial results in March. He takes over from Moolman on 1 June.

For Bam, the brief is broad. “I am inspired by MTN Group’s continental impact and excited joining a company whose purpose is leading digital solutions for Africa’s progress,” he said.