BCS Group's Irina Lebedeva appointed deputy head of commercial activity at Tele2

MOSCOW. Nov 20 (Interfax) - Irina Lebedeva, previously a vice president at BCS Financial Group, has been appointed deputy general director for commercial activities at cellular operator Tele2 (owned by Rostelecom ), the operator said in a statement.

Tele2 told Interfax that this is a new position in the company's management structure.

"As part of the Tele2 management team, Irina Lebedeva will be directly involved in shaping the company's strategy and will be responsible for achieving strategic and operational goals in the development of the product portfolio, sales and customer service," the statement says.

The following structural divisions of Tele2 will be transferred under Lebedeva's direct management: the Department for Sales and Development of the Mass-Market Segment; the Directorate for Strategic Development of the Product Portfolio; the Directorate for Digital Channel Development; the Directorate for Customer Experience Management; the Directorate for Big Data Analytics; the Directorate for Development and Implementation of the LTE-450 Project; and the Direction of Commercial Controlling.

Lebedeva graduated from the Faculty of Economics and Management of Communication Enterprises of the Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics. Before joining Tele2, she was on the board and was vice president at the BCS Financial Group, after having worked as managing director of the Moscow Exchange . She worked in the telecom industry over 16 years, holding a number of key positions in VimpelCom and MTS. Prior to this, Lebedeva headed the marketing and customer service department at the Nezavisimost car dealership.

At the end of September, Tele2 brought in a new general director, Rostelecom's senior vice president for the mass-market segment, Anton Godovikov, who combines the two positions. Rostelecom explained that Godovikov's appointment was aimed at creating a unified management structure for the B2C cluster. Rostelecom President Mikhail Oseevsky told reporters that the appointment of Rostelecom's senior vice president as Tele2 CEO is aimed at ensuring greater convergence within the group; there are no plans to merge the two operators.

In October, the director of the Moscow macro-region of the cellular operator was also replaced by a top manager from Rostelecom, namely the vice-president-director of the Center macro-regional branch Denis Lysov.