• Appointed MD Mahesh Jaishankar brings over 25 years’ technical and leadership experience from Google, Arthur D Little and du, enhancing CMC’s AI-connectivity ambitions.
• Since centre3’s acquisition of CMC in mid-2024, the company has deepened its AIOps capabilities and continues to serve more than 60 countries with resilient, future-ready services.
What happened：Appointment of Mahesh Jaishankar
CMC Networks—a subsidiary of centre3, wholly owned by stc Group—has named Mahesh Jaishankar as its new Managing Director, effective immediately. Jaishankar, an engineering graduate with an MBA, brings more than 25 years of experience in building and scaling digital infrastructure businesses. His professional journey includes roles at Google as Head of Strategic Negotiations, GNA, advisory work at Arthur D Little, and a pivotal role in launching datamena at du—positioning it as a global digital hub for hyperscalers, OTT platforms, carriers and enterprises.
He succeeds Marisa Trisolino, who departed in April 2025 to become CEO of euNetworks, the European bandwidth infrastructure specialis. Under Jaishankar’s leadership, CMC aims to accelerate its AI-powered connectivity solutions across Africa and the Middle East, building on its existing services such as dedicated internet access, MPLS, SD-WAN, Ethernet, satellite and Infrastructure-as-a-Service.
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Why it’s important
This change in leadership follows Center3’s June 2024 acquisition of CMC Networks, and this significantly increased Center3’s standing in emerging markets when it came to digital infrastructure. Jaishankar’s appointment concurs with CMC’s ambitions of developing into the more intelligent, scalable network provider in MEA in the future by possessing previous expertise in hyperscale and AIOps strategies.
CMC has already demonstrated measurable impact: using AI for IT operations (AIOps) it has reduced mean time to repair by 38% across its network, showcasing real operational gains and commitment to enterprise-grade service delivery. Jaishankar’s blend of global enterprise insight and regional entrepreneurship—reinforced by his charter membership at TiE Dubai, a leading global entrepreneurship network—lends strong credibility to CMC’s growth narrative.
