The world''s largest mobile communications company, Vodafone, made some changes to the management team at Connex yesterday by bringing Romanian-born Liliana Solomon, 41, from the UK to take over as chief executive officer.
As of November 1, Solomon will take over the running of the company, replacing former president and chief operating officer Ted Lattimore. She will hold this position for the next few years. Al Tolstoy, the former chief executive of both Connex and the Czech operator Oskar, announced his withdrawal from the two companies.
This is the first time Connex has appointed a Romanian to its top executive position. The move will turn Liliana Solomon into one of the most powerful women in Romanian business, as she will be running what is the ninth largest company in Romania in terms of turnover.
Connex and Oskar - previously held by Canada-based Telesystem International Wireless (TIW) - were acquired by Vodafone this spring in a deal amounting to some 3.5bn dollars (including 900 million dollars of debt). The value of the assets Vodafone took over at MobiFon was estimated at 2.5bn dollars.
"Under Ted''s direction Connex not only grew from 1 million to over 5 million customers in five and a half years, but year in, year out Connex has been recognised as one of the most outstanding and admired companies, both in Romania and beyond its borders," said Paul Donovan, regional CEO of Vodafone OVS (Other Vodafone Subsidiaries). "Liliana will work with Ted and the Vodafone Group to ensure she is fully conversant with the Vodafone strategies and the business priorities at Connex." Ted Lattimore will return to Canada, his home country, where he plans to play an active role in Vancouver''s preparations for the Winter Olympics in 2010. In the near future, Connex plans to develop its services based on 3G technology, which, said Arun Sarin, the Vodafone chairman, while in Bucharest two weeks ago, are "the future of the business" for the mobile operator. In his first visit to Bucharest, Sarin had done something he does not usually do when travelling abroad: he agreed to talk to the press.
Company officials added that Connex was preparing new service packages for its 3G clients, for the first time in Romania.
Liliana Solomon has worked in the telecommunications industry since 1995. She is joining Connex from Cable and Wireless, where she combined the roles of chief financial controller for C&W UK and chief financial officer for their international operations. She worked previously as chief financial officer at T-Mobile UK, where she was responsible for day-to-day GSM operations.
She also worked as executive vice president for Deutsche Telekom''s management division. Solomon speaks four foreign languages and likes to play tennis (she used to be a member of Romania''s national junior tennis team).
Connex generated more than 686 million dollars (553.5 million euros) in revenues and an operating income of 226 million dollars (182 million euros) in 2004. It had more than 5.2 million customers at the end of June. Vodafone is the world''s largest mobile community, with equity interests in 27 countries and Partner Networks in a further 14 countries. It has 165 million customers worldwide. mihai.musatoiu@zf.ro
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