NRI entrepreneur
and Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin appointed
as a member of the Business Council for UK
London, June 30, 2007
Darshan Kaur
NRI, Arun Sarin, chief executive officer of Britain's
Vodafone
has been appointed as a member of the Business Council for Britain
by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to advise him on issues that affect
enterprise, business and competitiveness of the economy.
Mervyn Davies of the Standard Chartered Bank will chair this
Council and will be attended by the Prime Minister and Secretaries
of State of the main economic departments.
The purpose of the Council will be policies and priorities,determine
the future economic and will have the power to establish Special
Commissions to make recommendations for reform
NRI, Arun Sarin,
49, chief executive officer of Britain's Vodafone
Arun Sarin, 49, chief executive officer of Britain's Vodafone,
the world's largest wireless company is at the seventh place,
while steel baron Lakshmi Mittal, chief of LNM, is listed as 15th
among Europe's Power25 - the most powerful people in business,
according to the latest issue of Forbes .
Vodafone last year generated 15 billion dollars in free cash
flow, although it recorded a net loss for the year of 15.3 billion
dollars, on revenue of 56.8 billion dollars, the magazine said.
"CEO for just a year, Sarin spent the first part of his
career in Silicon Valley at Airtouch, InfoSpace, and former Baby
Bell Pacific Telesis Group. He is part of an Indian diaspora that
is rising to lead banks and tech companies in Europe and the US.
But Sarin has the major challenge of bringing life to long-awaited
3G broadband service for mobile phones," the magazine said.
Arun Sarin was a director of AirTouch from July 1995 and was
President and Chief Operating Officer from February 1997 to June
1999. He was Chief Executive Officer for the United States and
Asia Pacific region until 15 April 2000, when he became a nonexecutive
director. He was appointed Chief Executive after the AGM on 30
July 2003. Arun Sarin joined Pacific Telesis Group in San Francisco
in 1984 and has served in many executive positions in his 20 year
career in telecommunications. He has also served as a director
of The Gap, Inc., The Charles Schwab Corporation and Cisco Systems,
Inc.
Vodafone is a company driven by vision, values and goals.
We aspire to be a great company – and central to that is
being a responsible business.
We already have a clear compass. One of our four values is 'Passion
for the world around us' and one of our six strategic goals is
to ‘be a responsible business’. Our challenge now is
to embed these values in Vodafone's culture at every level.
The business we are in touches people’s lives: our products
and services help customers connect with friends, families and
colleagues. These connections help build communities, create societies
and make countries. With our operations spanning 26 countries,
we have a significant impact on society and we must take our responsibility
for the world around us seriously.
During my first year at Vodafone I have travelled around the
business extensively and have had the chance to interact with
several thousand of our employees. In every country there are
great examples of how we are living our values.
For example, during a business trip to South Africa I visited
Soweto to see how our associate, Vodacom, turned a regulatory
requirement into a business model, providing 22,000 phones to
under-serviced areas and uplifting communities across the country.
Through Vodacom’s Community Service phone kiosks, housed
mainly in customised shipping containers, local entrepreneurs
were introduced to the mobile telecommunications business. Overnight
these locations developed into ‘centres of commerce’
as they attracted other businesses, boosting the local economy
by connecting it to untapped commercial opportunities and helping
to lift local people out of poverty. This kind of work exemplifies
what our business is all about: connecting people and enriching
lives.
We are also taking firm action to implement our goal to ‘be
a responsible business’, particularly when it comes to earning
the trust of our customers and other stakeholders in areas of
concern such as mobiles and health, supply chain and access to
inappropriate content. For example, during 2003/04 we spent £23
billion with our suppliers, contributing to jobs and wealth creation
for a lot of people. But a £23 billion supply chain also
carries risks in relation to potential abuse of human rights and
labour standards. We are already starting to manage these risks
through our Code of Ethical Purchasing, which we are advocating
to all our suppliers. We also participate in forums aimed at achieving
a common industry method of assessing social and environmental
supply chain risks.
These are just a few examples of how our Vodafone team is
demonstrating a commitment to business responsibility every day
of every year – and there are many more.
As a global leader in mobile telecommunications, it’s
important for us to take a lead in setting standards for the way
we go about our business. We have come a long way – and we
have a long way yet to go – but Vodafone is committed to
making a positive difference.
We said, we have, we will…
Arun Sarin
