Sanjiv Ahuja Orange CEO relinquishes his executive positions
Rating: is the job over or just beginning
Orange was in its glory days when it was launched by Hutchison in the UK market. Then when Hutchinson started getting cold feet – France Telecom stepped in to re-work the company. A lot of talented people left or resigned and Orange lost some of its appeal. But in the past two yers this has been changing. Orange has gone back to its “Future’s Bright the Future’s Orange” roots and started a comeback.
In fact since Sanjiv Ahuja joined Orange in 2003 the group has doubled its customer numbers from 48 million to over 100 million.
Olaf Swantee will now take over. He has 17 years experience and is currently SVP at HP.
From the press release:
Sanjiv Ahuja commented: “My years with Orange have been among the most exciting and fulfilling of my career. Right from the first phase in which we completed the full integration of Orange with France Telecom, it has been my privilege to work with an incredibly talented team across the entire Group that has effectively blazed a trail for the industry with the integration of all our businesses. After four great years with Orange, the time is now right for me to move ahead with a series of new ventures with the aim of exploring some of the fascinating opportunities that I believe this sector still holds. I’m also delighted to be maintaining my links with France Telecom in this context and I’d like to take this opportunity to pay a particular tribute to Didier Lombard whose vision of an integrated future for France Telecom has underpinned everything we’ve achieved over these past four years. I wish him and all my colleagues, success for the future, with every expectation that they will take Orange from its current position of strength to continued success.”
Didier Lombard, Chairman and CEO of France Telecom, commented: “Our sincere thanks go to Sanjiv who has brought his unique knowledge of the industry and a truly global perspective to his time at the head of Orange SA. His contribution to the success of the Group during this period speaks for itself and that is in no small part down to Sanjiv’s work in creating the conditions for the smooth and efficient integration of Orange SA with the France Telecom Group and then a successful extension of the brand across all our services. This means that today our Group can provide the full range of integrated services our customers require, under a single and even more powerful Orange brand. Along with our thanks, of course, we wish him all the best with his new ventures.”
What we think
Orange is at a very critical stage at the moment and we are surprised that someone from HP is taking over. It might have been better to bring in someone from the Entertainment or music industry with more of a media background as Orange’s converged strategy is only one part of the equation. Orange must maintain focus on the social media aspects of mobile.
Related News:
Leave a Comment