Former Vodafone wholesale marketing chief joins Viacloud

Mobile virtual network aggregator (MVNA) has appointed Vodafone Wholesale’s former marketing chief James Gray as marketing director.

While at Vodafone, Gray was responsible for building and leading the Wholesale Marketing team and was involved with all Vodafone’s major MVNO launches including Asda Mobile, Lebara Mobile, Talk Mobile and Talk Talk.

He also launched Mobile by Sainsbury’s, a joint venture MVNO between the supermarket chain and operator, where he has been marketing director for the last year. There, he was responsible for the proposition, go to market strategy and customer experience across all Mobile by Sainsbury’s channels.

He joins a star-studded team as his appointment follows the announcement of former EE CEO Tom Alexander, who launched the world’s first MVNO, Virgin Mobile, as non executive chairman for Viacloud.

Funded by Bahraini investment firm Stratum, Viacloud moved from technical development to commercial planning earlier this year, with the appointment of a heavyweight executive team. CEO Emanuele Angelidis previously headed up Italy’s Fastweb, Greek firm On Telecoms and the UK’s Bulldog Communications. CCO Tim Stone was previously director business development and wholesale at Vodafone UK while CFO Richard Schafer is also of Vodafone UK and previously of 3UK.

It’s another blow for Vodafone, which has been losing executives over recent months. Canadian operator Rogers Communications poached Vodafone UK CEO Guy Laurence in September and Vodafone UK’s CIO, Mark Dearnley, stepped down to take on the role chief digital and information officer at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in October.