New Vodafone boss rearranges company

September 11, 2016

Just six weeks into his appointment, Vodafone’s new chief executive is shaking up the company from the top down in a bid to cut costs and increase revenues.

Newly appointed Italian CEO, Vittorio Colao, is rearranging the senior management team at the company and plans to change the way the group operates in emerging markets.

Michel Combes, formerly a senior finance executive at France Telecom, will be appointed as head of Vodafone’s European operations.

Combes, now chairman at telecoms logistics group TDF, replaces the position left vacant by Colao’s promotion.

Forty-six year old Combes spearheaded the financial transformation of France Telecom, cutting the company’s debt, increasing dividends and making more products available to customers.

Colao has also split Vodafone’s emerging markets division in two, causing the head of the division, Paul Donovan, to hand in his resignation.

From January 2017, the emerging markets division will be split into a Central Europe and Africa division, and an Asia Pacific division.

Emerging markets are particularly important to Vodafone’s revenue streams, as poor economic conditions across the western world have seen income from those markets stagnate.

Thirty percent of Vodafone’s revenue is now raised in emerging markets.

The company has operations in Ghana, Egypt, Kenya and South Africa and India. It has a 3.3% share in China Mobile, which it hopes to increase.