Vodafone top brass change under Colao
Vittorio Colao, Vodafone’s new chief executive, announced a major reshuffle of the mobile telecoms giant’s top management yesterday – a move that will split its blossoming emerging markets division into two and see the departure of his most senior executive by the end of the year.
Colao has appointed former France Telecom finance director Michael Combes as the new chief executive for Europe, while Paul Donovan, the chief executive of the current division is stepping down.
Donavon was widely seen as a contender for Colao’s job.
Under the new regime the group’s stake in the US firm Verizon Wireless will now be directly managed by a senior team which includes Colao.
Analysts welcomed the reshuffle, saying Combes would bring an emphasis on taking further costs out of the mature European businesses, and said the time was right to divide the emerging group as it was becoming too large.
Combes, previously chairman and chief executive of private equity backed TV and mobile transmission operator TDF Group, replaces Colao who became Vodafone group chief executive at the end of July.
While Combes was at TDF, the group diversified both operationally and geographically, snapping up businesses in Germany, Finland, Hungary and the Netherlands and eyeing new services such as Wimax and digital radio.
Colao took over from predecessor Arun Sarin in July, who held the top job for five years.
When he took over Colao pledged to continue Sarin’s strategy for the company.
