Vodafone and Three UK Confirm New Leadership Team for Merger
Mobile network operators Vodafone and Three UK (CK Hutchison) have this afternoon announced their newly formed General Management Team for the future merged company. The new appointments followed a selection process and were approved by the MergeCo Governance Board, with representatives of both operators as shareholders of the new entity.
Just to recap. The merger, which was approved by the CMA in December 2024 (here) and is said to be worth £15bn+, will see Vodafone retain a 51% slice of the business and CK Hutchison (Three UK) hold 49%. Both operators have previously promoted the deal as being “great for customers, great for the country and great for competition,” while also resulting in a major £11bn investment to upgrade the UK’s 5G mobile (broadband) infrastructure and coverage.
The final deal is expected to reach completion in the “coming months” and, just ahead of that, Max Taylor, CEO of Vodafone UK, and CEO of the future merged entity, has today appointed the following people to lead the new company. Max Taylor added: “I would like to congratulate everyone on their new appointments. The new leadership team are all looking forward, following completion of our merger, to integrating our two companies and deliver on our commitment to build the UK’s best network for our customers”.
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- Darren Purkis, CFO
- Kelly Barlow, Strategy and Portfolio
- Clare Corkish, HR
- Andrea Dona, Networks
- Nick Gliddon, Business
- Stephen Lerner, Regulatory, Government Affairs & Company Secretary
- Nicki Lyons, Corporate Affairs & Sustainability
- Stephen Reidy, IT
- Jon Shaw, Consumer Operations
- Rob Winterschladen, Consumer
- Andy Yorston, Legal, Security, Compliance & Risk
The General Management Team appointees will transition into their new roles once the CMA process is fully complete and the new company, [MergeCo], is created, with the date of completion yet to be announced. Until then, all appointees will continue in their current roles at either Vodafone UK or Three UK, with both companies and teams continuing to operate separately until the merger is finalised.
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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So much for a 51/49 split. 3 out of the new 12 mergeco is vf appointments. It’s clearly a takeover. Stop with the marketing spin vf/3 saying it’s a ” merger of sorta equals”. After 3 years vf will buy the remaining 49%. Hutch have wanted out of the UK market for years
Bad for customers, bad for the country and bad for competition
Disgraceful this was passed through by the cma without any structural remedies
Well of course it’s essentially a takeover by Vodafone, and I expect the Three brand to be phased out within a few years. This will leave the UK with three MNOs (Vodafone, O2 and EE), which is hardly terrible when you look at Germany (three MNOs), France (four), Italy (three) and Spain (four). Furthermore the UK has about 50 MVNOs (such as Tesco Mobile, Sky Mobile, Giffgaff, iD Mobile and LycaMobile), far more than any other European country. So, I’m not expecting a shortage of competition.
50/50 business yet only 3 people represent Three. Nice ‘merger’. I’m sure the staff are aware they are all going to be replaced by Voda staff.
Looks to me Vodafone got the best positions:
From Three:
Darren Purkis, CFO
Stephen Lerner, Regulatory, Government Affairs & Company Secretary
Stephen Reidy, IT
Andy Yorston, Legal, Security, Compliance & Risk
From Vodafone:
Nicki Lyons, Corporate Affairs & Sustainability
Kelly Barlow, Strategy and Portfolio
Clare Corkish, HR
Andrea Dona, Networks
Nick Gliddon, Business
Jon Shaw, Consumer Operations
Rob Winterschladen, Consumer
Is this the end of the Smarty £15 a month unlimited sim?
I imagine Smarty will eventually end up being merged with Voxi seeing as they essentially do the same thing. Truth is less competition means everyone is likely to end up paying more.
When T-Mobile and Orange merged that lead to the end of the Three All You Can Eat plan, thankfully it did come back again eventually but losing infrastructure level competition is never good.
The sooner they merge the better. This will significantly improve coverage in rural areas to millions of customers. Can’t wait !
Vodafone is an awful company with awful customer service, almost as bad as BT/EE. i have no idea what I am going to do when the merge happens, I will see what happens with Smarty.
I am glad I don’t spend enough money on my mobile phone to make a difference to their profits
You could just stop being poor?
I shop at Aldi
I have good 3 signal with smarty had New 5 g master fitted in our town
Terrible Vodafone signal 4g only no 5g in East Anglia
Had 12 month Vodafone contract terrible they couldn’t setup my online account so couldn’t see my plan or billing I had to phone to get my usage and bills they couldn’t fix it so let me get out of the 12 month contract Free they told me they had many customers with same problem
Terrible customer service and Network
I mean I have no problem with Vodafone you just to speak clearly
Wouldn’t trust any of the Vodafone hierarchy after working for them for 3+ years only to be replaced by cheaper overseas agents in Egypt, nearly all of them couldn’t hold a prayer in a mosque, serious comment!
I think in future years that this will just be Vodafone in addition to 3’s mast infrastructure. It will more be like Vodafone eventually taking over 3 rather than both formed in one in the long run.
Or CK Hutchison taking over the entire Vodafone group, they have enough money and they certainly have been trying to get to Number 1 for some time, they just haven’t been able to here in the UK, they tried to buy O2 UK, they did buy O2 Ireland and they have acquired others across Europe such as Orange Austria,Tele2 Fixed line Austria and mergers in Italy and Australia, Vodafone as it happens officially trading as Vodafone Hutchison but they retired the Three brand some time ago. Hutchison has been investing in telecoms for nearly 40 years in the UK, they are unlikely to give up. They also own a lot more beyond telecoms in the UK too.
Vodafone has sold its Italian and Spanish businesses, so Hutchison acquiring Vodafone Group would be easy in terms of dealing with competition authorities and it would gain access to Germany and Netherlands, two countries Hutchison has never operated in but would have to give up Vodafone Ireland.
“great for customers, great for the country and great for competition,”
Great at lying too. Mark my words this will become another corporate greed extravaganza.
Why is it going to take nearly 10 more years to get to 95% implementation of 5g?
By that time we’ll probably have a complete new waffle technology which will be sold as the next great thing.