Yahaya Ibrahim

Speaker Bio

Yahaya Abu Ibrahim is current CTO of MTN Nigeria who is a globally experienced telecommunications executive and digital infrastructure strategist with over two decades of leadership in designing, financing, and transforming large-scale mobile networks across Africa.

He has led multi-billion-dollar capital programs exceeding $3 billion, driving the modernization and expansion of one of Africa’s largest telecom infrastructures  . His leadership spans end-to-end network transformation — from fibre networks expansion to IP core modernization, spectrum strategy, virtualization of nodes, submarine cable deployment and the successful deployment radio networks including Nigeria’s first 3G,4G and 5G  .

Under his stewardship, national-scale networks evolved to support daily traffic volumes exceeding 25 petabytes of data and 16+ million Erlangs of voice capacity  — significantly enhancing customer experience, resilience, and digital inclusion.

Beyond technical execution, Yahaya has played strategic roles in spectrum acquisition evaluation and re-farming, tower asset monetization, M&A integration initiatives, transmission architecture redesign, and large-scale policy and regulatory engagement  . His expertise bridges technology strategy, financial governance, stakeholder management, and transformation leadership.

Recognized for driving cultural excellence alongside operational performance, he has consistently delivered high employee engagement outcomes and is a recipient of MTN Nigeria’s first Y’ello Star Award across all MTN operating units and the CEO Award in 2021 for outstanding performance  .

Yahaya holds a Bachelor’s degree in Statistics and a Master’s degree in Telecommunications, complemented by executive education at Harvard Business School and Lagos Business School  .