Telecom and social media solutions firm Kirusa has announced the appointment of Zunaid Bulbulia to its advisory board.

In its announcement Kirusa states that Bulbulia is one of the founding members of the MTN Group and has over 22 years of experience in the telecommunications industry.

"As CEO of MTN South Africa and Group Chief Operations Executive (GCOE) for the MTN Group, he bolstered the group's competitive position in its markets in Africa and the Middle East. He is currently the non-executive Director of the Huge group and a member of the company's audit committee," the statement reads.

Bulbulia says, "The growth in the use of the Internet-enabled smartphones in Africa will be enormous over the next decade. The fact that operators are rolling out high-speed fibre-optic networks creates the ideal ecosystem for this growth. The development of applications on top of this basic connectivity layer is where the real growth will come from."

"Kirusa has proven itself to be an innovative provider of mobile applications that are being adopted by users, and that can be leveraged by network operators to build new services while enhancing existing ones. Given my experience of operating in many markets in Africa, I feel that I can be of immense value to Kirusa's vision of making these services mainstream on the continent.

"We are delighted and fortunate that Zunaid has joined our advisory board," says Inderpal Singh Mumick, Founder & CEO of Kirusa. "With over 22 years of experience in transforming the telecom industry across Africa, his vision and versatility will help mentor Kirusa to enhance its offerings further in Africa."

Zunaid holds a BCom in Accounting from the University of Witwatersrand and a BCompt Honors (CTA) from the University of South Africa. He is also a qualified Chartered Accountant, according to Kirusa.