Martin Dirks
Alternate Director to Tope Lawani (Non-Executive Director)

Martin holds 25 years of senior management experience in demanding international and multicultural environments across diverse (and highly relevant) sectors.

He currently works for Helios, prior to which, Martin was CEO of APM Terminals in Lagos, a subsidiary of the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, one of the world’s largest operators of container terminals with over 50 container terminals spanning 31 countries and five continents. Prior to joining APM Terminals, he served in a number of chief executive roles: Perhaps most notably, he was CEO of the Celtel International (now Bharti Airtel) telecommunications operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he led the highly successful turnaround of that previously loss making operation.

He has also served as CEO of Maxx Management, an investment company in Kazakhstan, focused on construction, railway infrastructure and maintenance; and of Ukrainian Mobile Communications in the Ukraine.

In addition, he has also worked as a Senior VP EMEA at Siemens Mobile Phones and as a Managing Director at Interway Holding BV, a Venture Capital Company. Martin, a Dutch national, graduated in Russian Languages from University of Groningen, in the Netherlands and has a degree in System Development from Institute of Information Technology. He speaks fluent Russian, English, French, German, Ukrainian and Dutch.