Andrew Kinnear
Andrew joined the British Army in 1969 and following time at Mons and Sandhurst was commissioned into the Royal Green Jackets. Andrew served in UK, Malaysia, Berlin Germany and was seconded to the Sultan of Oman’s Forces for 2 years in the 1970s. Andrew retired from the Army in 1978.
Andrew then went to Houston, Texas, USA where he joined an Oil Services Company called Dresser Industries. After studying Petroleum Engineering at the University of Houston was assigned to the Middle East where he was responsible and supporting up to 50 engineers in the Area, mainly providing Drilling Project work to Multinational Oil Companies.
In 1986, Andrew joined Cable & Wireless as the General Manager of their Communications Offshore Business entity based in Aberdeen, Scotland. He was then transferred to London and held various executive Marketing roles in the deployment of the Mercury Communications Project.
In 1992, Andrew joined and moved to the European AT&T Corporate HQ in Brussels where he was in the AT&T Project Team responsible for creating the Ukraine International Telecommunications Company – UTEL. This was a JV between the Ukraine Government, AT&T, Deutsche Telecom and PTT Netherlands and involved multiple discipline telecommunications work mainly in the operations area. Andrew was then asked in 1994 to move to Bahrain to manage the AT&T Voice business with National Telecoms Operators in all countries in the Middle East including Iran and Saudi Arabia.
From 1996 Andrew was involved in varied Consulting Projects including business development access in the Middle East and Africa for the Motorola Iridium Satellite Project, ISP activities with Turkcell in Turkey and Azerbaijan.
In 2007, Andrew entered the share capital of the Algerian Internet Service Provider – Icosium Networks – known as ICOSNET. Andrew has been involved within the company as an Executive Director up until this date. The company has grown to become the second fixed Operator in Algeria with the incumbent State owned Algerie Telecom as the only fixed alternative Operator in Algeria. Revenues have increased over 30 times. There are over 60 POPs in Algeria and Icosnet now has a significant International Network, including POPs in London Telehouse North, Madrid Interaction and Paris Telehouse 2 with NNIs to varied International Operators – Orange, BT, Vodafone, Telecom Italia Sparkle, Telefonica, China Telecom etc.
Andrew has been involved in the development of the business both in the Commercial and Operations Areas.
Andrew is a Founding Member on the Board of the Algerian British Business Council (ABBC) which meets 6 times per year to promote relations and business between Algeria and the UK.
Andrew lives in the country outside Winchester, Hampshire and enjoys outdoor activities.