Veon taps Roland Sladek for senior communications role

Veon, the Dutch telco formerly known as Vimpelcom, has named former Huawei executive Roland Sladek as group director of communication and identity, following a reshuffle of its communications and brand function.

Sladek's arrival follows last year's appointment of Mark MacGann from Uber as group chief external affairs officer. Since then, Rozzyn Boy, who served as chief communications and brand officer since 2015, has left the company. Sladek, who reports to MacGann, will oversee the global communication and corporate identity functions. He relocates to Amsterdam from Shenzhen in China, where he spent five years as VP of international media affairs at Huawei.

The new hires come as Vimpelcom rebrands to Veon and attempts to build a stronger positioning as a digital-focused company across the 14 markets in which it operates.

Sladek began his career in corporate communications with Daimler and held similar positions at Schneider Electric and at Vinci. Prior to his time at Huawei, Sladek headed global media relations at ST-Ericsson, the technology joint venture of Ericsson and STMicroelectronics, based in Geneva, Switzerland. 

VEON is a global provider of telecommunication services founded in 2009, incorporated in Bermuda and headquartered in Amsterdam. It is the sixth largest mobile network operator in the world by subscribers with 214 million customers in 18 countries.