Indian headquartered Bharti Airtel has moved to make key changes to its African management team.

The shake up follows the company’s announcement that its business in all countries where it operates is to be clustered into strategic business units (SBUs) whose leaders are set to report into the managing director and chief executive officer.

This clustered approach is set to be implemented in Africa from 1 April 2014.

As a result, Airtel says that VG Somasekhar has been appointed executive operations director of the SBU clustering Zambia, Congo, Malawi, Burkina, Niger, Chad, Madagascar and Seychelles.

Somasekhar has previously been managing director for Airtel Uganda since December 2010.

In addition, Christophe Soulet has been named executive operations director of the second SBU consisting of Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Gabon, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Rwanda.

Soulet has previously worked with Millicom in C-level roles for Tigo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ghana.

Airtel says that both Soma and Christophe are planned to be based in Nairobi for these roles.

Meanwhile, Airtel Africa chief executive officer Christian de Faria has further said that Segun Ogunsanya, who is the MD and CEO of the telecom firm’s Nigerian business, and Louis Lubala, currently MD for DRC, are to continue to lead these two particular business units.

Airtel has operations in 17 African countries and over 68.3 million subscribers on the continent.