Following approval of its acquisition of Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW), Vodafone has announced sweeping changes to the upper echelons of CWW. It’s essentially bringing in a complete new management team with the goal of accelerating the integration of the acquired business and, we imagine, dramatically improving its performance.
So the Chief Exec of Vodafone Global Enterprise, Nick Jeffery, becomes CE of CWW “with immediate effect”. He replaces Gavin Darby, who only became CWW Chief Exec last November, following the demise of John Pluthero. CWW’s CFO, CTO and HR Director are also being replaced by Vodafone insiders and, like Darby, will exit the business in October. Meanwhile Jan Geldmacher (literal translation: money maker) of Vodafone Germany will fill the vacant top spot at Vodafone Global Enterprise.
These are decisive and swift moves by Vodafone as it seeks to get maximum value from its investment in CWW (see Vodafone finally bags CWW for £1bn). The priorities for the new appointees will be to push on with the integration of CWW with Vodafone across all aspects of its business - not least network, back office and enterprise accounts (where Vodafone already has £1.3bn of its own revenue, via its Global Enterprise unit). Another urgent task for Jeffery and Co will be to whip the somewhat chaotic and underperforming CWW operation into more effective shape.