(Business in Cameroon) - In order to get a foothold on the very competitive telecom market in Cameroon, British firm Vodafone, who entered into partnership with Afrimax group to move into the LTE market, has already acquired the services of Antoine Pamboro. This telecom engineer has been Deputy MD of Camtel Mobile, the mobile-specialised subsidiary of national operator Camtel, which was bought in 1999 by MTN International as part of a privatisation process.

Holding the same position at MTN Cameroon, Antoine Pamboro, well into his fifties, then left the Cameroonian subsidiary of the South African telecom group six months later, for a long African adventure. Adventure which successively led him to head Celtel Congo, Airtel RDC and Airtel Gabon.

At the end of more than a decade at the head of the African subsidiaries of well-known telecom companies, Antoine Pamboro, a native of Mindjil in the Mayo-Kani department in Cameroon’s Extreme-North, came back to his country a few years ago to launch Sahel Agro. This agro-industrial unit is specialised in the processing of maize into flour. “I chose to get involved in the agro-industry to make a direct impact on the population”, he confided to Quotidien de l’Economie.

This project is mostly a kind of catch-up for this farmer’s son, who, after his baccalaureate C obtained in 1978, dreamed of being an engineer in agronomy, by joining the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Agronomie (ENSA). But, this ambition was cut short by the Ministry of National Education, who offered him a grant to study in France. Studies at the end of which he received a Master in Electronics in 1982, a considerable prerequisite for a career in telecommunications, which has followed him throughout his career.

BRM