Africa continues to be a very important market for us," comments Flavien Bachabi, regional vice-president Africa & Middle East for Intelsat. As telecommunications liberalisation continues across the continent, more and more opportunities are available for us to exploit our unique capabilities together with governments, communication companies and large corporate organisations. Ibrahimas appointment will strengthen our ability to achieve these goals.

In this new role, Ibrahima will apply his extensive sales and teamwork experience to lead our SA-based sales and support staff. They will work closely with existing and potential customers of the region to retain and expand our business and market share, support the efforts of our Washington DC-based regional sales staff, as well as all other corporate initiatives and activities in the region, Bachabi says.

According to the company, Ibrahima joined Intelsat in May 1995 as a communication engineer in the technical operations control centre, where his responsibilities included configuring satellite transponders and plotting beam coverage. He was also, according to Intelsat, responsible for providing link budget calculations for antennae verification till his promotion, in 1996, to regional director of Africa sales.

The company notes that prior to Intelsat, Ibrahima worked for Societé des Telecommunications Internationales du Niger. His responsibilities included advising the Director-General on new technologies, with a focus on the Internet and its applications.

Adams holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal and a degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Niamey (Niger). He received his master's degree in international management from the University of Maryland and also received his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Maryland.