Leadership changes at major fibre and data centre company in South Africa

Cassava Technologies, formerly Liquid Group, has announced ten executive changes at various divisions within the company, including the appointment of Ziaad Suleman as CEO of its South African business.

Suleman previously served as chief commercial officer at the beleaguered EOH (now iOCO).

At the same time, former Liquid Telecom South Africa CEO Deon Geyser was appointed CEO of Liquid Networks for Cassava, where he will oversee the company’s broadband portfolio across Africa.

In a statement on Monday, Cassava said the new members of its leadership team will further strengthen the company’s position after successfully concluding an equity round and reorganising the business towards the end of last year.

Cassava announced in December that it raised $90 million (R1.7 billion) with participation from U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation (Finnfund), and Google.

Subsidiary Liquid Intelligent Technologies also refinanced its long-term loan on a multi-tenor basis, with Standard Bank, Rand Merchant Bank, Nedbank, and International Finance Corporation providing a new R4-billion debt facility.

The fresh equity and refinanced loan was necessary for Cassava to avoid breaching its loan covenants and landing in a liquidity crunch, as the company is facing significant financial problems.

Fitch and Moody’s downgraded Liquid Telecom’s credit rating last year to account for the risk that the above restructuring and equity injection did not happen as planned.

However, even with the new funding in place, Fitch warned that the company was not out of the woods.

“Liquid Telecom had $57 million (R1 billion) cash on its balance sheet, but $43 million (R790 million) of cash was drawn from the revolving credit facility at the end of the 2024 financial year,” it explained.

“Cash declined to $48 million (R882 million) in Q1 of the 2025 financial year with the revolving credit facility substantially drawn, amid continued foreign exchange pressures, compared with $40 million (R735 million) required for operations.”

Fitch noted that a lot would need to go wrong for Liquid to actually default on its loans.

It said it expected a default from factors such as higher competitive intensity, increased technological risk, loss of key contracts, adverse regulatory or political actions, or considerable currency depreciation in key geographies.

“This would result in financial loss, reputational damage or prohibitive regulatory fines or conditions,” it said.

However, it also warned that Liquid could face further downgrades if progress is not made in refinancing existing debt at par.

Ineffective implementation of management actions to improve operating performance, accelerating negative free cash flow, could also result in further downgrades.

This means the executive changes Cassava announced today come with a heavy responsibility to ensure the company does not squander the successful equity raise and debt refinancing.

Cassava announced the following executive moves:

• Ahmed El Beheiry, COO and Chief AI Officer for Cassava Technologies, will be responsible for the commercial strategy, business processes, CIO, and supply chain.
• Deon Geyser has been appointed CEO of Liquid Networks for Cassava Technologies. In his new role, he will be responsible for the connectivity business across Africa, including all of Liquid’s fibre, satellite, wireless, and wholesale voice and connectivity services.
• Ziaad Suleman has been appointed the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of our Cassava business in South Africa. He will drive the growth and innovation strategy of the South African operations as the organisation ushers in the next growth phase and ensures future competitiveness.
• Adil El Youssefi has been appointed the new CEO of our co-location business for Cassava Technologies.
• Wellington Makamure has now been appointed the CEO of Rest of Africa & International for Cassava Technologies.
• Finhai Munzara has been appointed Chief Corporate Development Officer for Cassava Technologies. He will be responsible for M&A, corporate finance, and strategic partnerships.
• Bronwen Zehmke is now the Group General Counsel for Cassava Technologies. 
• Leonard Bore is now the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer for Cassava Technologies. He will manage compliance risk, enterprise risk, Internal Audit, and ESG teams.
• Sharon Marufu has been appointed the Chief Supply Chain Officer for Cassava Technologies. She will oversee the group-wide supply chain and procurement.
• Lorreta Songola will assume the role of Managing Director of our Cassava business operations in Zimbabwe.

“I am confident that these changes, along with the collective efforts of our new and existing team members, will set us up for sustainable, profitable growth in the future,” stated Cassava Technologies president and group CEO Hardy Pemhiwa.