Anwar comes with a wealth of international cross-functional experience in the telecommunications industry with a special focus on countries with an emerging telecoms sector.

He was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Safaricom Ethiopia in July 2021 reporting to the Board of Safaricom Telecommunication Ethiopia Plc. Anwar leads the executive leadership team with the goal of helping bring about transformational economic and social impact as well as positively affect the lives of over 112 million people with enhanced communication technologies and world class mobile financial services.

Before joining Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia Plc as the CEO, he managed Vodacom DRC and was the Chairperson of Vodacash (M-PESA) since 2017.

Anwar cemented Vodacom DRC as the largest Vodacom operation outside of South Africa by driving major strides in operational performance, crossing the $500M USD in service revenue mark for the first time in 2020.

Prior to joining Vodacom DRC, Anwar served as the Chief Executive Officer of Airtel in Uganda and Chad. He has also worked in various senior leadership capacities at MTN and Digicel, as well as with other international telecom operators.

Anwar holds a Master’s degree in Marketing from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the American College of Greece (Deree).