(Telecompaper) Bharti Airtel has announced Christian de Faria, who worked as MTN's chief commercial officer until early this year, as its new CEO in Africa. Manoj Kohli, MD and CEO (International), in charge of Airtel's operations in Africa, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, will relocate to India effective 01 January 2014. Kohli, who is currently based at Airtel's Africa headquarters in Nairobi, has led the company's foray into Africa over the past three years. Faria will join Airtel Africa 16 September and be based in Nairobi. He will report to Kohli, who remains CEO International. Kohli will also work on strategic issues such as in-market consolidation, tower companies, global partnerships, sourcing from key partners and regulatory aspects. From mid-September, Faria will take charge of Anglophone operations in Africa and start a review of Airtel Africa HQ functions and the Francophone and Nigeria regions. He will assume overall responsibility as CEO of Airtel Africa from 01 January 2014. Faria brings with him over 30 years of industry experience, working for companies such as MTN, Telekom Malaysia, Discvision, Deutsche Telekom and Grundig.