Who is Marius Adanzounon, the new General Director of the National Lottery of Benin?

His appointment comes in the context of the renewal of several heads of companies and public institutions since the inauguration of President Romuald Wadagni on May 24, 2026. He succeeds Gaston Zossou, who led the public company for ten years, covering the entirety of President Patrice Talon’s two terms.

A pure product of customer relationship

Born in Cotonou, Marius Adanzounon holds a bachelor’s degree in management information systems from the National School of Applied Economics and Management (ENEAM), complemented by a master’s degree in communication and marketing from the International Institute of Management. His professional trajectory is linear in its course: to understand, measure, and improve the customer experience on a large scale.

He joined MTN Benin in 2009 as the coordinator of internet and multimedia products. In this position, he participated in the launch of 3G and the deployment of the Blackberry service, which would reach up to 200,000 active users. It was a time when mobile internet was still a promise in Benin. Adanzounon is among those who made it a commercial reality.

Seventeen years transforming MTN from within

His progression at MTN is not particularly spectacular in form, but the figures he leaves behind speak for themselves. In 2014, as a project manager, he designed a model for expanding the network of agencies that multiplied their number by six, while saving $15 million in investment expenses over a year. He also created a dedicated sales force for the 100,000 VIP customers of the operator, generating a 25% increase in internet penetration for that segment.

From 2017 onwards, his responsibilities expanded to encompass the overall customer experience. He led the launch of a mobile application that racked up 200,000 downloads in a year, deployed chatbots, omnichannel tools, and a 360° view of customers. Three years later, between August 2020 and February 2021, he took a first interim role at the general management of customer experience and recorded a relative Net Promoter Score growth of 12 points over twelve months, a measure that concretely reflects subscriber satisfaction.

Officially appointed as the director of experience and customer service in June 2023, he then managed a team of 170 people with an engagement rate of 90%. He launched the improved version of the MyMTN application, which reached 200,000 active users in three months, and ultimately led a KYC project for subscriber identification securing 95% of the revenue from the concerned base.

A profile of a system builder

What stands out in Adanzounon’s journey is less the individual brilliance than the method. Each position held resulted in a constructed system, a formalized strategy, an improved indicator. He obtained the Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) certification and underwent Agile Scrum Master training, two references that say something about his approach to problems: through processes, through data, through iteration.

At the LNB, he takes over a house whose notable event of the last decade was the IPO on the BRVM in December 2024, a first for a public company in Benin, which allowed the state to divest 35% of its capital. The institution is now exposed to demands for transparency and performance that an outsider trained in private telecommunications sector standards could serve.