Irene Charnley (born 6 May 1960) is a former

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

ist and businesswoman from South Africa.

Career

Charnley first made her mark on the African business community as a negotiator for South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers where she spent 13 years coordinating various divisions of union operations.''Irene Charnley''
career info at Forbes.comBiography of ''Irene Charnley''
at AfricanSuccess.org. She went on to become an executive director for the

MTN Group MTN Group Limited (formerly M-Cell) is a South Africa, South African multinational corporation and mobile telecommunications provider. Its head office is in Johannesburg. MTN is among the List of mobile network operators, largest mobile netwo ...

, which is Africa's largest

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

company. Under her leadership several African and Middle Eastern countries (including Nigeria and Iran) were connected into the MTN network. Charnley was the behind the founding of the National Empowerment Consortium made up of 50% black business owners and 50% black African laborers. They eventually owned 35% of Johnnic Holdings (now called Johnnic Communications). Charnley left MTN under controversial conditions but she was worth US$150 million when she left. In August 2000 she was awarded the title of ''Businesswoman of the Year'' for her outstanding contribution to taking Johnnic from an industrial conglomerate to a modern telecommunications media group. During her time at Johnnic (from 1996 to the late-2000s) 32,000 disadvantaged South Africans bought shares in the company. Financial returns over a three-year time span has made these 32,000 African residents 400% wealthier than they were before buying the shares. A more recent award made Charnley one of the top 50 businesswomen outside of the United States. Charnley is currently the CEO of Smile Telecoms Holdings Ltd, a Mauritius-based Pan-African telecommunications group with operations in Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda,

the Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

and South Africa.

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

listed her among "Africa's 50 Most Powerful Women" in 2020.

References

External links

Smile Key Management
1960 births South African businesspeople Living people {{SouthAfrica-bio-stub