Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin stepping down, to be replaced by Vittorio Colao

You know how you quit your job that one time because you just weren't seeing results and the coffee kind of sucked? Well, not this guy. After five years at the helm of the world's largest phone company, Arun Sarin is leaving his CEO spot at Vodafone at the ripe old age of 53. His #2, Vittorio Colao, the current Regional CEO of Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa for Vodafone, will be taking the top spot, with the handover to happen on July 29th. Sarin's rule of Vodafone included a failed bid for AT&T Wireless and considerable expansion into emerging markets like India, Turkey and Romania. It's certainly paid off for the company, with full-year profits of $13.25 billion. According to the man himself, "I've done what I came here to do. The time is right and the time is now." It does appear he'll be sticking around a bit in an advisory role, and rumor has it his next gig will be private equity-related.

[Flashpoint @ May 27th 2008 12:11PM]

this guy looks like a vampire

[bob @ May 27th 2008 12:12PM]

Anyone else seeing a Christopher Walken resemblance?

[schmitty338 @ May 27th 2008 12:25PM]

...I got a fee-va...

[schmitty338 @ May 27th 2008 12:40PM]

...and the only prescription....

[phanbouy @ May 27th 2008 3:03PM]

i'm seeing a resemblance to fakest smiler of all time

[tekdroid @ May 27th 2008 12:28PM]

13.2 billion in profits?
Biggest phone company in the world?

OK, but they still don't know how to spell phone!


;)

[Ankan Bhowmick @ May 27th 2008 12:46PM]

His last name is Sarin ... hmm.

[Vinay @ May 27th 2008 1:22PM]

'Sarin' is a common Indian surname.


Sarin is also a deadly neuro-toxin.

[lolozaur @ May 27th 2008 2:29PM]

Arun Sarin (Hindi:अरुण सरीन) (born October 21, 1954, in Pachmarhi, Madhya Pradesh, India)

[Bob S. @ May 27th 2008 1:12PM]

Huh! I thought Metroid was a chick!

(I'd like to thank my mom for teaching me never to make fun of people's names, because it made it extra fun.)

[sir_flexalot @ May 27th 2008 1:21PM]

Of course his next job will be private equity-related... he's taking the position as Count de Monet.

[Charles @ May 27th 2008 1:37PM]

The man set the record for the largest UK corporate loss in history but not happy with that record he raised the bar again in 2006 with a bigger loss of £14.85billion (nearly $30billion). When he says "I've done what I came here to do" I can only assume he was trying to prove himself to be the most incompetent moron in history. The only reason he was kept on for so long was to take the blame for the endless streams of bad news from the company.

Some of the emails he sent out to staff where hilariously stupid. He once sent an email to all employees saying how he was recording a video on his phone at the F1 GP and he was disappointed to find he could only record for a few minutes of low quality footage. He wanted to know why he couldn't record hours of HD footage..... Its a phone not a video camera; if you made it so it could record hours of HD footage it would be massive and very expensive. I'm surprised he didn't ask why it couldn't fly him to Mars. He really was one useless bastard.

[Hedley Lamarr @ May 27th 2008 2:12PM]

To be fair to him, the two big losses were writedowns on the Mannesmann deal that Chris Gent architected; and that during Sarin's time, mobile phone companies went from being seen as 'tech sexy' to 'utility' in the eyes of most analysts and the share price tanked accordingly.

Personally I think the stuff he said about the iPhone was moronic - 'a pretty poor user experience'

[lolozaur @ May 27th 2008 1:45PM]

ah Vodafone :|

what happened in Romania. Orange bought Dialog, Vodafone bought Connex. Orange+Vodafone = Love (monopoly) price going up up up! Profit going UP UP UP!

How it is now in Romania.

Digi.Mobil (owned by RCS&RDS) 3G only network covered 50% of population in less than 1 year, best tariffs.
Cosmote soon to be namend (T-mobile :)) ) best 2G coverage 98% , very good tariff plans
Orange - still ok
Vodafone - bleeding clients day by day, After rebranding people still call it Connex ))
ah and Zapp

[phanbouy @ May 27th 2008 2:02PM]

HOT SHIT! some rich dude being replaced by another! i'm calling everyone i know!

[SurKaz @ May 27th 2008 2:16PM]

Thanks for the call... Now my turn!

[phanbouy @ May 27th 2008 2:53PM]

me no understand your reply

[phanbouy @ May 27th 2008 2:54PM]

just kidding. thanks i'll be here all night. try the lobster