More changes at Vodafone as Italy CEO becomes Group CCO

In addition to his current job as CEO of Vodafone Italy, Aldo Bisio will also take on the role of Group Chief Commercial Officer at the operator.

Aldo has been CEO of Vodafone Italy since January 2014 and is a member of the Group Executive Committee. His new Group Chief Commercial Officer role will kick in on January 12th 2023.

This is part of a wider bit of reshuffling within the operator’s high command – Vodafone Spain will join what it terms as the ‘Europe Cluster’ – presumably some sort of internal division – effective concurrently with Bisio’s new gig, and report to Europe Cluster CEO, Serpil Timuray. Colman Deegan, CEO of Vodafone Spain, has decided to step down as CEO effective March 31st 2023, and his successor is yet to be appointed.

Meanwhile Chief Executive Nick Read announced he was stepping down from his role at the end of last year, with no permanent replacement named. CFO Margherita Della Valle has been appointed interim Group Chief Exec, and Read will remain available as an adviser to the board for the first quarter of 2023.

“I want to thank Colman for his leadership of Vodafone Spain and congratulate Aldo and Serpil on their new responsibilities as we work together to accelerate our commercial performance and drive shareholder value,” said Della Valle.

A possible instigating factor for Read’s departure and even these wider leadership changes could be the operator’s most recent quarterlies, in which Read announced a pessimistic outlook. Vodafone’s shares fell on the news, are down 20% this year and by over 40% since Read took over.

In terms of who might take the reins now, Light Reading notes several names are floating around the rumour mill including Vivek Badrinath, the CEO of Vodafone’s Vantage Towers, Stephen Carter CEO Informa (the owner of Telecoms.com), who currently sits on the Vodafone board, Nick Jeffery, who left Vodafone UK to become the CEO of Frontier Communications two years ago, and Andrea Salvato, chief development officer at Liberty Global, amongst others.

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