Actis announces launch of Connectis Tower brand and management team
- Launch of Connectis Tower follows acquisition of carved-out tower portfolio from Telekom Srbija comprising approximately 1,800 macro towers across Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Montenegro
- Experienced management team to lead the platform, including CEO Bogdan Djukic and CFO Jovana Nikolic
LONDON, 14 May 2024: Actis, a leading global investor in sustainable infrastructure, has announced that the macro tower portfolio acquired from Telekom Srbija in January 2024 will be launched under the brand Connectis Tower. Connectis Tower aims to be a leading independent tower platform in the Balkans, operating an existing portfolio of circa 1,800 macro towers, including approximately 1,000 in Serbia, 700 in Bosnia & Herzegovina, and 100 in Montenegro, and with plans to expand this tower portfolio beginning in 2024.
Bogdan Djukic will lead the company as Group CEO. He is a seasoned leader in the telecom and infrastructure industry, with over 17 years of expertise. Prior to this position, he was General Manager at EuroTeleSites in Serbia and Slovenia and was part of the company’s management team. He has also held a number of roles including Operations Director, Procurement Director, and Managed Service Chief Operating Officer at Ericsson (Serbia and Montenegro) and led the network rollout strategy at A1 in Serbia (formerly Vip Mobile).
Jovana Nikolic joins Connectis Tower as Group CFO, with more than 17 years of experience in audit, financial leadership and corporate finance. Before joining the platform, Jovana worked as CFO of a technology scale-up where she led fundraising efforts and served as a member of the executive management team. She began her career as an auditor at KPMG and went on to hold several finance leadership roles overseeing accounting, financial operations, and financial planning and analysis. Jovana is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and member of the CFO association of Serbia.
Under Bogdan and Jovana’s leadership, Connectis Tower is ideally placed, as an independent platform, to operate an optimised tower portfolio catering to the needs of network operators in the Balkans, proving space on towers situated in prime locations and supporting operators’ growth and reliable service delivery.
Independent tower companies offer significant benefits to the sector as they provide shared infrastructure that reduces operational and capital expenditures, allowing operators to focus on service quality rather than infrastructure management. The result is a model that promotes quicker deployment of new technologies, such as 5G, and facilitates widespread connectivity while minimising environmental impact by reducing the physical overlap of network infrastructure.
The business, headquartered in Belgrade, with offices in Banja Luka and Podgorica, strives to deliver services that support better-functioning, more inclusive, and more connected economies by bringing and keeping rural populations online and sustaining local economic development.
Jaroslava Korpanec, Partner and Head of Central and Eastern Europe, Energy Infrastructure at Actis, commented: “The announcement of the Connectis Tower brand under the management of highly skilled and experienced leaders, such as Bogdan and Jovana, marks a new chapter in the platform’s life. With Actis’ global network and strong reputation, we’re able to build high performance management teams and that’s what we’re doing here – putting all the pieces in place to create a best-in-class tower platform, rooted in the Balkans, and designed to serve those markets, its network operators, and consumers. It represents an exciting investment for Actis.”
Bogdan Djukic, Group CEO at Connectis Tower, said: “I’m delighted to have joined Connectis Tower to lead and build-out a talented and committed team. We have ambitious plans to expand our tower portfolio in the coming years and to provide more opportunities for enhanced service to network operators in the Balkans. I look forward to continuing this important work with Actis and Connectis Tower to deliver an ambitious strategy in the region.”