MTN SA CEO Mteto Nyathi shares his personal connection with the philosophy behind The Sun International CEO SleepOut™
The leader of one of Africa's biggest telecommunications companies, Mteto Nyati shares how he personally connects with the intention of The Sun International CEO SleepOut™. Listen to the CEO of MTN South Africa sharing his vision for building a better South Africa.
MTN South Africa's CEO Mteto Nyati connects organically with the purpose of The Sun International CEO SleepOut™: “I come from a village called Tabase which is about 20 km from Mthatha in the Eastern Cape. In that environment, things of course clearly were tough. I am not afraid of a challenge; as engineers, we seek challenges and clearly for me, this is clearly a very good cause. As MTN, we are currently this month doing what is called “21 days of Yellow Care”, where our people go out and reach out to the communities and we serve them and what better way for a leader than me signing up for The CEO SleepOut™?”
Mteto expands on his vision for South Africa: “We’re living in a country where some of us believe that there needs to be a ‘winner takes it all’ and if we approach life like that, clearly, we are not going to be moving forward. We have a significant number of our South African citizens that want to contribute to the building of this country, but we each of us need to give a little bit, share a little bit more. By doing all of that, we will be able to lift people that will do the same for others. If you want to protect this beautiful country of ours, you want to grow it - we need to share a little bit more.”
Mteto was born in the Eastern Cape town of Mthatha where he completed his first years of schooling. Upon completion of his studies, he was offered a scholarship to do a BSc in Mechanical Engineering, which he completed in 1995.
He started off his career at Afrox in the gases and welding products industry where he served in various roles. He later joined an FMGC company where he was instrumental in consolidating the company’s plants in one central operation. Mteto left the industry and joined a JSE-listed packaging manufacturer, and later left to pursue a career in ICT at IBM South Africa. He served IBM South Africa in various capacities before he joined Microsoft South Africa in 2008 as Managing Director, a position he served for six years.
In October 2014, Mteto joined MTN as Group Chief Enterprise Officer in October 2014 and in July the following year he was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of MTN South Africa. He has won a number of accolades in his illustrious career, including being named as one of Yale University’s World Fellows on Global Leadership. He also won the coveted Black Management Forum’s Manager of The Year award in 2012 and the Oliver Empowerment’s Male Business Personality in 2013. He was also recognised as the 2014 IT Personality of the Year by the Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa.
His interests include travelling, writing (he is a published columnist), reading and coaching.
Mteto has called on Cell C’s CEO José Dos Santos to Rise Up To The Challenge #4Leaders4Change