Management team

Ineke Botter

Chief Executive Officer

Ineke Botter has extensive international experience in the finance and telecommunication industry. She holds university degrees in corporate and international law, and started work in the financial world in Amsterdam and London in the 1980s.

In 1991, Ineke Botter moved to Kiev, Ukraine to acquire the license for the first mobile telecommunications network, UMC, Ukrainian Mobile Communications for KPN. She moved to Budapest, Hungary in 1992 to work as the Legal and Procurement Director for Pannon GSM. After two years in Hungary, she joined UniSource Mobile in Sweden – a KPN joint venture company – to be responsible for Business Development activities in various parts of the world.

In 1995, Ms. Botter joined Czech Telecom as the Head of Mobile Communications. She worked in Prague until early 1998 when she left to join Orange, then owned by Hutchison Whampoa, Hong Kong. She was General Manager for Network roll-out for Orange Switzerland until the end of 1999.

In 2000, Ms. Botter returned to the Netherlands to work as the Wireless Communications Managing Director for Versatel Telecom NV in Amsterdam and served at Board level in a number of Orange companies. She moved to Stockholm, Sweden in 2001 to become Director of Engineering and Operations for 3, another Hutchison Greenfield operation.

Ms. Botter then worked in Pristina, Kosovo for the United Nations as the Division Manager for Post and Telecommunications Kosovo (PTK) before moving to Lebanon in mid 2004 as the Managing Director/CEO for Alfa, managed by FDT, until the expiry of the Management Agreement with the State of Lebanon at the end of 2008.

She has recently moved to Azerbaijan to accept the position of CEO at Bakcell Ltd.

Rene-Heinrich Bienz

Chief Financial Officer

Rene-H. Bienz has extensive international experience in the finance and telecommunication industry. He holds a MBA degree in Banking and Finance, and was teaching at the University of Fribourg and UBS Bank in Switzerland during his studies conducting accounting analysis projects. In 2001 he completed the Harvard Business School Executive Program.

He graduated in the mid 90s and moved to the Czech Republic to join Czech Telecom, the incumbent telecom company that, from 1995, was managed by TelSource, a joint venture between KPN of the Netherlands and Swisscom. Nowadays, Czech Telecom is owned by Telefonica and operates under the brand name O2.

Rene-H. Bienz joined Czech Telecom, initially as Financial Controller involved in both fixed and mobile communications setting up the internal Capital Appraisal Group in order to better understand the costing aspects of the operations. As a result of this initiative Rene Bienz was asked to head up the Mergers & Acquisition Group which he did until 2000 to then move on to the role of CFO of Imaginet, the internet division of Czech Telecom. His last role in Czech Telecom, before he moved back to Switzerland in 2004, was Senior Financial Officer at Group level.

After his return to Switzerland, Rene Bienz headed up the Strategic Planning Group of CableCom, the dominant cable TV operator, offering triple play service portfolio to the Swiss consumer market.

In 2005 he was asked to join the second largest mobile operator in Azerbaijan as CFO, a company that, during his tenure, increased from just 400,000 to well over 1.5 million subscribers and that currently is one of the largest investors in the country.

Krasimir Genov 

Chief Commercial Officer

Krasimir is a graduate of the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO). He worked for more than 10 years in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods markets across the Balkans, namely in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, as well as in Romania and Moldova. He started as a salesman and built his carrier up to executive positions in Procter & Gamble and Kraft organizations. For over 3 years Krasimir lead the start up and growth of the Sales & Distribution department of the Bulgarian mobile operator Vivatel. In the last 2 years he managed the business markets group reorganization of the incumbent Bulgarian telecom operator BTC as well as Sofia broadband service provider.

At the beginning of August 2009 Krasimir joined Bakcell in the position of Chief Commercial Officer.

Cristian Vasilcan

Chief Technology Officer

Christian was appointed to the position of CTO of Bakcell in June 2008 and has over 15 years technical, commercial and managerial experience in the telecoms industry.

Among his many technical skills, Christian has extensive knowledge of network planning, roll-out, technical audit and risk management in challenging conditions.

Prior to joining Bakcell, Christian was the Lead Consultant at AVEA Turkey on 3G Network Planning and Deployment.

He also holds a BSc in Electronics from the University of Electronics and Telecommunication, Bucharest.