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Frehiwot Tamiru, CEO of Ethio Telecom – Personal Profile


Frehiwot Tamrat is one of those trusted CEOs by prime minister doctor Abiy Ahmed. She is appointed to be part of Ethiopia Telecom board member before she is assigned as chief executive officer of the company.

Previously Frehiwot has been an employee of Ethio Telecom formerly known as ‘Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation ‘  beginning from a normal staff to being vice director of the company in her 7 years stay. Then she left the company for own sake.

After leaving Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation, she has established her own IT company and she were the manager of the this firm. This company gave her great deal of opportunity that helped her to show her capacity of managing and building from a scratch.

After seven years out, then she joined ethio telecom as one of board members after doctor Abiy came to power. But with in few months she is assigned as the CEO of one of the biggest companies in Ethiopia. She followed the foot steps of the prime minister And tried to implement different reforms in the company starting from lower staffs to higher management.

In this interview she had thanked ethio telecom subscribers which stands at more than 43.6 million. Right now she is planning to implement mobile money which she believe will enhance the company revenue vastly. For example, Safarincom of Kenyas 60% revenue is generated from mobile money. There fore if she can be successful with her new project in the company, the government can expect big revenue boost which could reach up to twice the current annual revenue. This can go beyond 100 billion birr.

Ethio Telecom has more than 43 million active subscribers as of July 2019. At this point the company revenue has reached 36 billion birr annually. Still network quality remains an issue through out of the country. Especially internet service in Addis Ababa is far below expected as it is impossible to connect mobile data during a day time in several places. Though the CEO explained how she is planning to solve and tackle the issue for once and for all it remains to be seen practically.

As a sole telecom operator in Ethiopia, the company has many advantages as there is no price competition. But from the users perspective, many believe competition will help the subscribers to get a better service and a competitive price for the services they are using.

Recently the government of Ethiopia has announced that it is considering the company for privatization. Privatization could help the company grow further but it remains to be seen what risk it could bring to the government when it comes to revenue and security. It is known the biggest security weapon at the moment across the world is cyber power. Hence, telecom is the core of any information technology related security goals. There fore I believe that the government may change its mind and look for other alternatives such as bringing in competitive operators.