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Mr Marandure

Business Reporter
ZOL Zimbabwe, a leading internet service provider, has appointed former Verizon Communications director Mr Denny Marandure as its new chief executive.
Mr Marandure’s appointment took effect from September 16, 2014. He replaces ZOL founding CEO Mr David Behr.
Mr Marandure takes over the reins after gaining wealth of experience following a two-decade stint in the United States. He has held influential positions with Top Fortune 500 companies in America, including PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Verizon Communications, Lucent Technologies and IMB before his latest appointment as CEO of ZOL Zimbabwe.

Mr Marandure spent 10 years at Verizon Communications, US’ largest telecommunications company. He joined Verizon as a business analyst responsible for developing competitive product prices.

He rose through the ranks to become business strategist reporting directly to the vice president of Verizon Global Enterprise, a position he held until 2012. Verizon had revenue of $120 billion in 2013 while income during the same period came in at $31,9 billion.

“With his wealth of international experience and exposure in telecommunications and technology industry, this will bring ZOL Zimbabwe’s operations in line with international best practices,” ZOL said in a statement.

Part of Mr Marandure’s job at Verizon entailed ensuring customers enjoyed highest standards of customer service and resolving their issues in time and empathetically while growing the customer base.

“Many times, people think that customer service is just calling a centre or customer service department and speaking to a customer representative, but it’s more than that. It is a full circle, which begins right from order inception to maintenance,” Mr Marandure said.

ZOL said the stellar customer experience that Mr Marandure learnt and experienced during his tenure at Verizon is something he is keen to replicate at ZOL.
“I want to create a little Verizon in Zimbabwe,” he said. His experience includes wireless products and services, industry trends, competitive dynamics of marketplace using best practices and customer service.

Like the Verizon FIOS in the US, which took monopoly everywhere it was rolled out, Mr Marandure has launched a similar product in Zimbabwe called Fibroniks, which integrates high speed internet service and voice over internet protocol, with prospects to introduce television in future.

“The experience is nothing like ADSL or dongle. It is so fast and makes it hard to draw a distinction between ZOL Fibroniks and Verizon FIOS. The quality of our network is increasingly becoming relevant in achieving better user experiences for customers,” he said.

He said Fibroniks delivered new technology on a superior network (LTZ) that gives enhanced capacity, availability, security, intelligence and speed. It allows people to watch high definition television on internet sites such as YouTube, live television feeds, video on demand and movies in a matter of minutes.

Mr Marandure is a product of the University of Zimbabwe where he graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree in 1988 before migrating to the US in 1992 where he earned his Master of Business Administration degree with Howard University. He joined IBM in 1993 as an internee.

“I am very excited to be leading ZOL, a dynamic and growing company into the second half of the digital revolution. ZOL is an iconic brand in Zimbabwe and I start in a really strong position,” he said on his appointment.

In Zimbabwe Mr Marandure has a wealth of experience working for Nettcash as chief operating officer responsible for Nettcash’s M-commerce portfolio focused on its role in the evolving networked society.