Liliana Solomon climbs Vodafone's corporate ladder, will be replaced by Spanish CEO

Liliana Solomon, 46, CEO of Vodafone Romania, who fetched the British group an over one billion-euro net profit in her five-year term, will take over as the operator's director of operations for the Europe region in December. She will be number two in the division in charge of Vodafone operations in 14 European countries, Romania included. Solomon will therefore return to London, where in 2005, when Vodafone recruited her, she was CFO of Cable & Wireless operator.

Management of the local Vodafone subsidiary, no. 2 on the telecom market, a nearly 1 billion-euro business per year with almost 10 million customers, will be taken over by Spaniard Inaki Berroeta, 43. With 15 years' experience on the telecom market, he comes to Romania after a three-year stint at the helm of Vodafone Malta, a market with half a million inhabitants, where the UK group has 239,000 customers.
Berroeta takes the reins of Vodafone Romania at a time when the mobile telephony market is heading towards its second year of decline in the context of recession and of a more mature market. Vodafone's biggest rivals are Orange and Cosmote.