Chris Wood, the chief executive officer of African wholesale carrier WIOCC, has been named the information and communications technology industry personality of the year at AfricaCom, in Cape Town South Africa.

The executive has been named the winner at a glittering ceremony in Cape Town, South Africa during the ongoing AfricaCom, an annual ICT conference and exhibition.

Wood edged Kenyan executive, Betty Mwangi-Thuo, the Safaricom general manager of financial services, and Liquid Telecom chief executive officer, Nick Rudnick, for the recognition.

WIOCC helps deliver high-capacity connectivity between Africa and the rest of the world.

“Chris Wood has led WIOCC since start-up, building it into a profitable, award-winning business with a unique, pan-African network, international client base and the number one supplier of diversity-rich, high-capacity, end-to-end managed circuits into and out of Africa. WIOCC has experienced continuous growth in a competitive market with a number of Tier-1 national telecoms operators, global carriers and international ISPs having signed up with WIOCC during 2013,” the judging panel said.

"As a result, it is now recognized as the continent’s carriers’ carrier, offering a one stop-shop and end-to-end service between more than 30 African countries and the world’s key global financial and commercial centres,” said the panel.