Vodafone Appoints Margherita Della Valle As New Group CEO
UK-based global mobile operator Vodafone has today confirmed that their Interim Group CEO, Margherita Della Valle, has just been appointed as their permanent group CEO. She will also continue on as Group Chief Financial Officer until an external search for a new CFO is complete.
In case anybody has forgotten, the Vodafone Group announced the sudden departure of their former CEO and Director, Nick Read, at the end of last year as part of an agreement with the Board. The decision was part of an effort to find somebody who could improve the operator’s “operational performance“.
Until his departure, Nick was often considered by some to be part of the furniture at Vodafone, having spent over 20 years of his career there. But it seems as if the operator’s Board has opted to continue on with a familiar face in Margherita Della Valle, rather than go in a radically different direction.
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Jean-François van Boxmeer, Vodafone Group Chairman, said:
“On behalf of the Board, I am delighted to announce the appointment of Margherita as Group Chief Executive, following a rigorous internal and external search.
Margherita has a strong track record during her long career at Vodafone in marketing, operational, commercial and financial positions. Over the last few months as interim Group Chief Executive, the Board and I have been impressed with her pace and decisiveness to begin the necessary transformation of Vodafone. Margherita has the full support of myself and the Board for her plans for Vodafone to provide better customer experience, become a simpler business and accelerate growth.”
Margherita admitted that Vodafone “needs to change” in order to realise its potential, and she added that her goal would be to “improve the service for our customers, simplify our business and grow.” Only time will tell what all of that really means in practice.
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Standard Vodafone decision, to promote from within. You can always trust voda to make the safe boring appointment. Vodafone need a shake up and have so for years. Promoting Vodafone lifers is not what’s needed at this critical juncture. I’m sure della valle is competent but Vodafone needs to stop being so corporate and shake things up
Unfortunately, “improving operational performance” in a sales & marketing led business like Voda means only one thing: More cost cutting, and applying more pressure to the sales team. It’s broadly been the same at Virgin Media, except they got to the bottom of the barrel, found there were no more costs to cut, everything was already outsourced, offshored, and done as cheaply and badly as possible (except marketing), and the only direction they had was a tie up with Voda or O2, and eventually went with O2 because Voda were too greedy.
Voda are quite similar to VM – outsourced, offshored, appalling service, under-invested assets, obsessively focused in sales and marketing at the expense of all else. So at a guess we’ll see divestiture of under-performing business units, of any smaller “distraction” businesses, and a still greater focus on sales and marketing in larger markets. Essentially doing the same thing again, hoping for a different outcome. But that won’t help. Even addressing basics like the poor customer service isn’t a panacea. Improving customer service by bringing it back to the UK and investing in it, that seems to run counter to the ethos of these large, crap companies beginning with V. Such a move would also have short term higher costs and a certain amount of risk because moving badly designed customer service from the third to the first world may simply result in customer service that remains crap at higher cost.
An interesting alternative, but not one I believe they’ll undertake, would be to become the third UK fixed line infrastructure business. Essentially to consolidate altnet assets for a bargain price as the financial speculators who funded the altnet gold rush walk away. A little far fetched, and not a strategy I believe they have the vision or competence to execute, but as a buyer of last resort it has potential. And the alternative to this strategy is to watch CityFibre (who have a major commercial relationship with Voda) get absorbed by the same owners as VMO2. That would be a catastrophic mistake for Voda, on the other hand Voda have form on misjudging the big picture.
I empathise with Vodafone’s strategy team. They can work all this out and more, they know everything that has and is going wrong, but their hands will be tied (I’ve been in your shoes, strategy peeps, and can assure you that there will be no executive epiphany; if you want a more satisfying job, move on do something rather different). All senior management will simply be jockyeing for advancement rather than sorting out the mess that the company has become. Whilst corporate difficulties are acknowledged, nothing is done operationally or CULTURALLY to address why the company is in a pickle. All the key decision makers will be mobile telephone sales & marketing bread-heads who are averse to anything new or different (like buying altnets), and who collectively know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
The forecast. Newbury. Wind: Northeasterly 4 to 6, becoming cyclonic 7 to gale force 8, Sea state: rough, Weather: Gloom, Visibility: Poor.
North Utsire, Wind Southeasterly 4 to 6, becoming cyclonic 5 to 7. Sea state
SEA STATE
Slight or moderate, becoming moderate or rough.
WEATHER
Rain.
VISIBILITY
Good, occasionally poor.