Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read Announces Sudden Exit
In a surprise development, Nick Read, the CEO of UK-based broadband and mobile giant Vodafone, has “agreed with the Board” that he will step down as Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and as a Director on 31st December 2022. The move is part of an effort to find somebody who can improve their “operational performance“.
Nick is considered by some to be part of the furniture at Vodafone, having spent over 20 years of his career there. As CEO, he led the operator through a global pandemic, spun out its tower infrastructure and sold some assets, but the company’s share price has continued to suffer. According to the market announcement, he will remain for a little while longer as an adviser to the Board, ending on 31st March 2023.
In his place, Margherita Della Valle has been appointed Interim Group CEO, although she will also remain in her current position as Group Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Meanwhile, the operator’s Board has already initiated a process to find a new Group CEO.
Jean-François van Boxmeer, Chairman of Vodafone, said:
“On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Nick for his commitment and significant contribution to Vodafone as Group Chief Executive and throughout his career spanning more than two decades with the Company.
During his four years as CEO, he led Vodafone through the pandemic, ensuring that our customers remained connected with their families and businesses. He has focused Vodafone in Europe and Africa as a converged connectivity provider and led the industry in Europe in unlocking value from tower infrastructure.
Margherita has recently been taking a broader operational role within the Company and the Board fully supports her as interim Group Chief Executive.”
Nick Read, Group Chief Executive, said:
“It has been a privilege to spend over 20 years of my career at Vodafone and I am proud of what we have delivered for customers and society across Europe and Africa. I agreed with the Board that now is the right moment to hand over to a new leader who can build on Vodafone’s strengths and capture the significant opportunities ahead.”
Changing CEO is a significant development for an operator of Vodafone’s size, and often results in a change of strategic direction.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
« Airband Suffers Slow Broadband Speeds in Shropshire and Herefordshire UPDATE
FreedomFibre Invest £7m to Rollout FTTP Broadband in Eccles »
Latest UK ISP News
- FTTP (5515)
- BT (3514)
- Politics (2537)
- Openreach (2297)
- Business (2262)
- Building Digital UK (2244)
- FTTC (2043)
- Mobile Broadband (1973)
- Statistics (1788)
- 4G (1664)
- Virgin Media (1619)
- Ofcom Regulation (1461)
- Fibre Optic (1395)
- Wireless Internet (1389)
- FTTH (1381)
Nick has been an absolute catastrophe. Should have been sacked years ago.
Hopefully he will take TOBi with him.
Perhaps they should take a page out of DT’s book and hire John Legere to shake things up a bit
Yeah we need an all British Customer Support Service team. I love people from India so helpful. But luck understanding when it comes to support most don’t understand the kind of support you need and sometimes they miss hear you and you have to keep repeating yourself. I just wished they would get the support to make it the uk instead of leaving them to get on with it. It’s know ones fault.
I’ve found Vodafone’s support good and useful, though they can have a long queue. Try their live chat instead, TOBi (their bot) will ask you a question to see if a FAQ page can help you but will pretty quickly give you a person.
In my experience, if vodafone were able to create accurate bills and do what they promise then they wouldnt need supposedly poor call handlers making maters worse because we belive that they ‘aren’t any good’
I disagree that being in india or egypt in a vodafone call centre makes them any less capable. its people predjudice that are and continue to be the problem
I think it is an accent thing that is more of an issue in that respect, not so much that they’re from Egypt, India or wherever else, and by default are somehow incapable of correcting issues.
Even domestic accents can be a fun one to deal with e.g. ‘Scottish’, Geordie, & Scouse to name a few are known to be a challenge to understand especially for those unfamiliar with them.
I have an easier time understanding and much prefer Indian/Serbian/Filipinos than Scottish
The issue with Vodafone has been their historical lack of customer service, going back almost 20 years to p4u / singlepoint. They are almost at a stage now where their service is no better or worse than other MNOs, admittedly the mvnos trump the lot of them but that perception still exists as voda being a bit old fashioned and offering poor service.
Nick Read was a basket case from the start, didn’t get a hold of the many disparate operations globally and embarrasingly for them behind customer numbers to ee and o2. The merger with 3 comes from a position of weakness. Too many ceos have lacked the vision to really drive home the changes needed.
To think voda disposed of their verizon for just over 70 billion. Now the full business is worth under 30 billion and the debt pile is bigger than the valuation of the whole business
A sorry state of affairs for a British success story who lost its way over the years