Ra­jeev Suri has been named as chair­man des­ig­nate of Dig­i­cel Group.

Suri will suc­ceed De­nis O’Brien as part of the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Re­struc­tur­ing Ser­vices Agree­ment (RSA) which is meant to ad­dress the com­pa­ny's debt.

In a news re­lease con­firm­ing Suri's ap­point­ment, Dig­i­cel said that O’Brien will con­tin­ue to serve on the board and re­main a share­hold­er in the com­pa­ny.

The re­lease al­so stat­ed the Im­ple­men­ta­tion of the RSA will see the Dig­i­cel share­hold­er con­sor­tium led by PGIM, Con­trar­i­an Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, and Gold­en­Tree As­set Man­age­ment gain a con­trol­ling stake in the com­pa­ny. Suri will con­tin­ue to be based in Lon­don, the no­tice stat­ed.

Dig­i­cel en­tered in­to a re­struc­tur­ing agree­ment ear­li­er this year in a bid to ad­dress the mas­sive debt it had in­curred.

The in­com­ing share­hold­ers of Dig­i­cel in a joint state­ment said; “Ra­jeev has a proven track record of trans­for­ma­tive de­liv­ery and with a strength­ened bal­ance sheet, we see con­sid­er­able po­ten­tial to grow val­ue and prof­itabil­i­ty at Dig­i­cel.”

O’Brien, Dig­i­cel’s founder said: “I am de­light­ed to wel­come Ra­jeev as chair­man des­ig­nate. Giv­en his im­pres­sive track record of de­liv­ery over 35 years, I know he will both add val­ue and cre­ate val­ue for all our stake­hold­ers. He joins su­perb lo­cal teams across the Caribbean and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca with whom it has been my priv­i­lege to work for over 25 years. He is the ide­al leader to de­liv­er on Dig­i­cel’s next phase of growth.”

Dig­i­cel's chair­man des­ig­nate Suri said: "I want to thank Gre­go­ry Cass, Prin­ci­pal, PGIM, Pat Dyson, Part­ner, Gold­en­Tree As­set Man­age­ment, Xi­ao Song, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, Con­trar­i­an Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, De­nis O’ Brien, Dig­i­cel’s Founder and all the share­hold­ers of Dig­i­cel for wel­com­ing me in­to the com­pa­ny. De­nis has built a fan­tas­tic com­pa­ny with lead­ing po­si­tions in the mar­kets it serves.

"I look for­ward to get­ting on the road to meet our cus­tomers and em­ploy­ees and con­tin­u­ing to strength­en the com­pa­ny’s board and lead­er­ship team to take the com­pa­ny for­ward in this next chap­ter.”

Suri has worked in the tele­com in­dus­try for around 35 years, most re­cent­ly as chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of In­marsat from March 2021 un­til its ac­qui­si­tion by Vi­asat in May 2023. He joined In­marsat from Nokia, where he was Pres­i­dent and Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer from 2014 to 2020, hav­ing served as Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of Nokia Siemens Net­works since 2009. He was a Com­mis­sion­er of the Unit­ed Na­tions Broad­band Com­mis­sion and served as Chair of the Glob­al Satel­lite Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (GSOA).

Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions con­sul­tant Kwe­si Prescod ex­plained that the an­nounce­ment was the be­gin­ning of phased changes which were ex­pect­ed at Dig­i­cel fol­low­ing the re­struc­tur­ing.

"What this means is that it re­struc­tures how Dig­i­cel does busi­ness. So what we can ex­pect to see in the fu­ture is Dig­i­cel's ap­proach to both the com­mer­cial and the reg­u­la­to­ry space to be mod­i­fied by the de­mands of the new lead­er­ship of the group," said Prescod, "It will take time, a year maybe 18 months for the new Dig­i­cel to re­al­ly emerge but what can be as­sured is that a new en­ti­ty will con­tin­ue try­ing to be com­pet­i­tive. The ques­tion, like a burn­ing ques­tion is if 5G is on the hori­zon. I think that is go­ing to be de­pen­dent up­on com­mer­cial mod­els, the vi­a­bil­i­ty of the mar­ket ab­sorb­ing that in­vest­ment. "

He said the in­vestors would have to as­sess Dig­i­cel's space in the lo­cal mar­ket es­pe­cial­ly with the gov­ern­ment's dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion plans, which may or may not im­pact prof­itabil­i­ty.