Etihad Etisalat (Mobily), a leading telecom services operator in Saudi Arabia, said it has appointed Khaled Abanami, an industry veteran, as its new chief financial officer replacing Kais Ben Hamida.

Abanami has over 22 years of professional and academic experience. He began his career as a finance lecturer at the College of Business Administration in King Saud University in 1996.

Later, he moved to build his experience in the telecom sector at STC where he held a number of senior positions at the Group level and its Viva Kuwait subsidiary, said a statement from Mobily.

At Viva, Abanmai led the finance, logistics, facility management, procurement and contracts teams during the company’s establishment phase. In 2013, he became the CFO and acting vice president shared services at Saudi Railway Company, it said.

Previously, he was the financial controller at the National Water Company where he managed the consolidation, budgeting and planning of the company.

Abanami was also an honour student at King Saud University - College of Business Administration and holds an MBA from Sam Walton College of Business University of Arkansas.

Lauding the appointment, CEO Engineer Salman Albadran said: "Our company seeks to attract highly qualified Saudis to bolster its position and leadership in the ICT sector."

“This appointment underscores the company's keenness to strive to empower national talent to lead the company's key roles,” he stated.

Albadran added that Abanami enjoys vast experience in leading finance functions with extensive knowledge in the telecom sector, financial restructuring, finance, cost reduction, IFRS implementation, and digital transformation.

“I am confident that Abanami will be a strong asset to us helping lead our company towards its next phase of growth and value creation,” added Albadran.-TradeArabia News Service