M1 CEO Karen Kooi to step down

She will be succeeded by telco veteran Manjot Singh Mann.

M1 announced that its CEO Karen Kooi Lee Wah will retire on 6 December after 23 years with the group, a statement revealed.

She will however remain as director of the board for M1 Limited following Konnectivity’s pending pre-conditional offer for M1 shares. Kooi will also remain as advisor to the board until 28 February 2019 to ensure a smooth transition, the statement said.

“During her tenure as CEO, M1’s fixed services revenue grew steadily, achieving double-digit growth in the last five years,” M1 chairman Danny Teoh noted. “And in the more recent times, Karen has overseen M1’s acceleration into the ICT business and the strengthening of its product offerings to capture new opportunities in the digital economy.”

She will be handing the reins over to Manjot Singh Mann who is the regional CEO for Nasdaq-listed cloud software firm Pareteum Corporation. He was previously CEO for Indonesia’s Hutchison Telecommunications from 2006 to 2014, and later the CEO of communications and convergence for Britain's Lebara Mobile from 2014 to 2018.

“The M1 board is confident that Manjot is well-suited to lead M1 in this increasingly competitive landscape, with his global perspective for growth and unique multidimensional view of the industry,” Teoh added.

M1’s profit fell 5.3% YoY to $34.4m in Q2 from $36.3m, whilst revenue jumped 10.1% YoY to $274.6m from $249.5m. The telco firm received a buyout offer price of $2.06 per share from Keppel’s Konnectivity and the Singapore Press Holdings (SPH).