Former Vodacom CTO Appointed as new CEO of DFA

DFA’s current CEO, Thinus Mulder will formally step down as CEO on 30 September 2021.

CIVH group CEO and DFA chairman, Raymond Ndlovu, thanked Thinus for his immense contribution in overseeing DFA and the CIVH group’s growth during his tenure over the last thirteen years, first as the founding CFO at DFA and, more recently during the past five years, as DFA CEO. Mr. Ndlovu acknowledged Mr. Mulder’s leadership in achieving the company’s stellar financial performance and the significant improvement in DFA’s Net Promoter Score in recent years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Thinus will still be available to the group until at least December 2021. His consummate knowledge of the CIVH group’s businesses and the ICT industry is an asset that CIVH will still want to draw upon. Andries is an astute technical and commercial leader in the industry, and CIVH has full confidence in his capabilities and industry pedigree in leading DFA forward during this time of high-paced regulatory, technological, and commercial-market-structure changes in the environment.”

Raymond Ndlovu, CIVH group CEO, DFA chairman

Andries Delport, the current CTO of the CIVH Group, will take over the reigns as DFA CEO from 1 October 2021. He will immediately become more involved with DFA operations during the intervening transition period. Andries is no newcomer to the industry, having spent close to 25 years at the Vodacom Group, fulfilling the role of Vodacom Group Chief Technology Officer since 2011 before joining CIVH in 2020.

DFA is the premier wholesale, open-access fiber infrastructure and -connectivity provider in South Africa. We finance, build, install, manage, and maintain a world-class fibre network to transmit metro and long-haul telecommunications traffic. We started rolling out our fibre network in 2007, and to date, we have deployed over 14,000 km of ducting infrastructure in major metros, secondary cities, and smaller towns. Our network runs with an industry-leading uptime of 99.98%. We lease our secure transmission and backbone fibre infrastructure and provide associated connectivity services to telecommunications operators, Internet service providers, media conglomerates, tertiary education institutions, municipalities, government organizations, and other businesses, large and small, on equal terms. DFA is a Level 2 B-BBEE Contributor on the ICT Sector Codes.