Mobile TeleSystems : Vyacheslav Nikolaev Appointed MTS President & CEO

MOSCOW, Russia - Mobile TeleSystems PJSC ('MTS' or 'the Company') (NYSE: MBT; MOEX: MTSS), Russia's largest mobile operator and a leading provider of media and digital services, announces that the MTS Board of Directors ('BoD' or 'the Board') has appointed MTS First Vice President for Customer Experience, Marketing, and Ecosystem Development Vyacheslav Nikolaev as President & CEO for a three-year term beginning March 13, 2021. Following the end of his term at MTS on March 12, current President & CEO Alexey Kornya has been recommended to be appointed First Vice President of MTS parent Sistema PJSFC (LSE: SSA, MOEX: AFKS), a Russian publicly traded investment company, by the Nomination, Remuneration, and Corporate Governance Committee of the Board of Directors of Sistema PJSFC.

Felix Evtushenkov, Chairman of the MTS Board of Directors, commented: 'In his new role as MTS Group President & CEO, Vyacheslav Nikolaev will take on an ambitious task - strengthening MTS's market position as a telecom-based ecosystem of digital services, thereby completing MTS's comprehensive brand transformation. In addition, we regard it as equally important to further reinforce the Company's established leadership position within the highly competitive telecommunications market. Over the past several years, Vyacheslav has headed MTS's efforts in marketing, customer experience, and ecosystem development, overseeing brand favorability as well as product and service quality. He has enabled the successful work of our product teams, while revamping the way we engage with customers and attracting leading international partners into the MTS ecosystem. With more than 15 years of experience at MTS, I am confident his professional acumen, strategic grasp of the industry - as well as the Company's ambitions and opportunities - will position him to further build on the achievements of his predecessors to increase shareholder value and lay a strong foundation for MTS's continued successful development.'

'We thank Alexey Kornya for the record operational and financial results achieved by MTS under his leadership over the past three years - in particular in 2020 despite the challenging market trends amid the global pandemic. Alexey's strategic vision and extensive expertise in innovation enabled him to successfully realize the first phase of MTS's Customer Lifetime Value 2.0 strategy aimed at building an ecosystem of consumer services. His broad experience, management talent, and deep financial aptitude will be great assets as he takes on a new position at Sistema PJSFC to help the company strengthen its position in innovative directions,' Felix Evtushenkov added.

Biography of Vyacheslav Nikolaev

Vyacheslav (Slava) Nikolaev was appointed First Vice President for Customer Experience & Marketing in August 2019. In April 2020, his role was further expanded to encompass MTS's strategic digital ecosystem efforts as First Vice President for Customer Experience, Marketing, and Ecosystem Development.

Vyacheslav first joined MTS in 2004 and has served in a series of senior positions across marketing and commercial management, most recently as Vice President for Marketing (2017 2019) and before that as B2B Director (2011-2017). His earlier roles included Group Director for Commercial Control, Deputy Director for Regional Management at MTS Russia, as well as acting Director of MTS Russia.

Before joining MTS, Vyacheslav worked as a supervising telecoms analyst, leading the sector research teams at Trust and Renaissance Capital. Vyacheslav began his professional career in 1997 as a consultant at European Public Policy Advisers (UK) and J'son and Partners (Sweden).

Vyacheslav was born in 1970. He graduated from the Faculty of Computational Mathematics & Cybernetics at Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1992.