Speaker Details
Bashar Arafeh
COO - East Africa Region, Zain Group
As Zain's Chief Operating Officer for the East Africa Region, Bashar Arafeh is responsible for overseeing Zain's operations in Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania and Uganda. He has vast experience in management, marketing, strategy, sales and business development.
Mr Arafeh began his African based career as Managing Director of Zain Tanzania on 1 January 2007, catapulting the operation to become the market leader, quite an achievement given it was the 4th entrant into the country only a few years earlier. Prior to this, he held an impressive list of positions in the telecommunications sector. These include having worked as the Chief Commercial Officer of Zain's company in Jordan.
In addition to this, Mr Arafeh played a key role in the setting up of Zain's operations in Bahrain and Lebanon. He has also served in the senior leadership team of Arabia Online in Dubai (the first line online community in the Middle East) and Managing Director of Jordan's first radio paging company, Mirsal.
Graduating with a BSc in Architectural Engineering from the University of Jordan (1989), Mr Arafeh completed the Harvard Business School Executive Development Program in Boston, USA in 2009.
