Zain’s board of directors accepted the resignation of managing director and deputy chairman Saad Al Barrak, a development that will become effective as of March 1, 2010.

The board called on the ‘reserve member’ for the interim and also discussed the creation of the new position of CEO of Zain Group, the holder of which would succeed Al Barrak. However, the board members decided to defer naming Al Barrak’s successor until its next meeting.

The board expressed its appreciation of all that Al Barrak had achieved for the company over the past seven years, in particular his ambitious 3x3x3 strategy and the role he has played in transforming the group’s performance to match that of the world’s major international telecommunications companies.

Zain Group is reported to have selected a former minister of communication to replace Saad Al-Barrak as the company’s managing director, following Barrak’s resignation earlier this week.

“Former minister of communication Nabil bin Salama has been chosen as the chief executive,” Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas reported.

Yesterday Zain said in a statement that the operator’s chairman would convene the board of directors at the soonest convenient time to deliberate on the matter.

It is understood that Zain’s board met today to discuss Al-Barrak’s resignation

Zain this afternoon confirmed that Saad Al Barrak, managing director/ deputy chairman, Zain Group has submitted his resignation to Asaad Al Banwan, chairman of the board of directors of Zain. The company said in a statement that the chairman will now convene the board at the soonest convenient time to deliberate on the matter. Zain has notified the Kuwait Stock Exchange and will immediately inform all stakeholders on any future and relevant updates.

The chief executive officer of Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications, Zain, has resigned, according to reports by Al Arabiya television, citing unidentified sources.

Comm. contacted a Zain spokesperson for confirmation of the resignation, and was told, “No comment” earlier this afternoon.

Speculation regarding Al Barrak’s future at Zain began to mount last September after leading investors in Zain Group signed an agreement with a Malaysian-Indian consortium for the sale of a 46 per cent stake in the Kuwait mobile operator group. The agreement had been negotiated and entered into by Zain shareholders, with little-to-no input from Zain’s executive management, led by Al Barrak, a situation that is believed to have frustrated the CEO immensely.

Vincenzo Nesci is a 30-year veteran of Alcatel and Alcatel-Lucent, and at the beginning of this year became the non-executive president of Alcatel-Lucent’s operations in the MEA , giving way to Amr El Leithy to assume the executive leadership of the business. In an exclusive and informal interview with Comm., Nesci reminisces about the almost four decades he has spent in the region, and about the Alcatel-Lucent that exists today

Nesci joined Alcatel in 1980 and held several positions in Italy, East Africa and Belgium before becoming Alcatel vice president for the Middle East

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