PTCL appoints Matthew Willsher as President & CEO

ISLAMABAD ( STAFF REPORT )

The PTCL Board of Directors has appointed Matthew Willsher, currently CEO of Etisalat Afghanistan, to the post of CEO PTCL Group (PTCL & Ufone) effective 1st December 2020. He succeeds Rashid Khan, who was President & CEO of the PTCL Group since March 2019 and decided to leave due to personal reasons.

Matthew has been working in the telecom industry for over 25 years. Previously he has been CEO of Etisalat in Afghanistan and in Nigeria, and held CXO roles for Etisalat in UAE, Maxis in Malaysia, and CSL in Hong Kong. He has also worked in Australia, South Korea, Holland and the UK in a variety of commercial, operational and corporate roles. Matthew’s career started in marketing for Procter & Gamble.

He holds a degree in Physics from Oxford University in the UK, a Masters in Management from McGill University in Canada, and a Diploma in International Practicing Management from INSEAD in France.

During Rashid Khan’s leadership, multiple initiatives were taken at PTCL to improve network availability, stability & customer service levels which have helped improve customer experience today, resulting in PTCL consistently achieving positive net adds since last 6 months. All these positive indicators have helped PTCL retail business to return to growth in Q3’20. Ufone’s turnaround also took place in his leadership where the subscriber base grew 22% and data subscribers grew by 86%. Despite several limitations, for last two years, Ufone has managed to beat expectations.

The Board thanked Rashid Khan for his leadership and commitment, and welcomed Matthew to the PTCL Group.