Saudi Arabian telecommunications provider Zain Saudi Arabia, a subsidiary of Kuwait's Zain Group, announced that Peter Kaliaropoulos has stepped down as Chief Executive Officer. Zain Saudi's former Chief Operating Officer, Eng. Sultan Al Deghaither, will fill the chief executive role after Mr. Kaliaropoulos leaves on 30 June to pursue other opportunities.
Zain Saudi Board of Directors decided that the leadership change and appointment of Eng. Al Deghaither as CEO will be effective as of 1 July 2018. The Chairman of Zain, HH Prince Naif bin Sultan bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Kabeer on behalf of the Board and the company said, "Peter Kaliaropoulos led Zain Saudi in delivering its first ever net profit and accelerated the customer focused operating culture and the development of Saudi talent."
HH Prince Naif welcomed the appointment of Eng. Sultan Al Deghaither saying, "Sultan Al Deghaither is a talented executive having worked his way up the organization ladder. He will take over the leadership of the company with tremendous operational, technical and customer management expertise having led many complex projects that repositioned Zain Saudi as a company of reference for data quality and service in Saudi. The Board has the utmost confidence in his leadership skills to continue growing Zain Saudi in the future".
Eng. Sultan Al Deghaither started his journey with Zain Saudi when the company itself had just begun its operations, as radio planning and optimization manager in 2009 where he participated in building the engineering department. Moreover, he led the commercial launch of the first 4G network in the kingdom back in 2011.
Among his other achievements, Sultan led one of the biggest projects in Zain Saudi's history (project Reload) with a total investment of SAR 4.5 Billion. He was appointed as Chief Technology Officer after the successful completion of the project. Thereafter he was appointed as Chief Operating Officer with the added responsibility of regulatory affairs as well as innovation and digital transformation.
