Vodafone UK’s Consumer Broadband and TV Director Quits

It’s fair to say that Vodafone’s return to the UK home broadband market has been a quiet one, much like their first failed attempt, and the plans to introduce a TV product alongside have yet to materialise. As such some may see the departure of Cindy Rose (Consumer Director) as a bad sign.

At the last count Vodafone had 89,000 UK fixed broadband customers (here), but most of those come from third party ISPs on their unbundled (LLU) network and possibly also business lines (i.e. the bulk of those were already present before the new home broadband service launched last year). Meanwhile the Pay TV product is still said to be coming soon (within the next few months).

On top of that Vodafone faces mounting pressure in the wake of BT’s £12.5bn merger with EE and the threat from a possible merger between Three UK and O2, which in one fell swoop could turn Vodafone into the UK’s smallest primary mobile network operator (they’re currently the 2nd biggest after BT/EE).

It’s into this climate that the departure of Cindy Rose is likely to sting. Rose held partial responsibility for both of the operator’s consumer broadband and planned TV solutions, but the Telegraph reports that Vodafone are looking to cut costs and thus her old job is being merged into the role of Commercial Director, which from 4th April will be headed up by Glafkos Persianis.

Jeroen Hoencamp, CEO of Vodafone UK, said:

“We’re sorry to see Cindy go as she’s contributed very significantly to the business over the past two-and-a-half years. We wish her all the very best in her next role.”

Sadly Rose failed to deliver a working TV product before her departure and the launch of their consumer broadband service was staggered in a very confusing way (it only became available on a national scale in October 2015). On the other hand it’s still early days for Vodafone’s broadband ambitions and thus we shouldn’t judge them too harshly.

A change of management can also produce more positive results and right now Vodafone’s home broadband service would certainly benefit from some fresh blood, better advertising and stronger engagement from their PR team.

Structurally speaking we were also a little disappointed to see that Vodafone and Liberty Global (Virgin Media) couldn’t reach a deal last year (here), which we think could have been a good move for both sides. However the door to such an arrangement remains open and we wouldn’t be surprised to see further talks in the future.

In short, Vodafone still has a lot of work to do but many of their weak points would be easy to solve with the right leadership.