Steve Pusey is the brains behind Voda’s much-hyped £19bn ‘Project Spring’ investment program, designed to bring its mobile networks across Europe up to scratch as customers expect increasing reliability and capacity. The program was funded in part by the sale of the firm’s 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless.
Pusey recently featured in a major Vodafone advertising campaign aimed at highlighting the improvement scheme. It marked a shift in mood and tone for the British telco, which was previously represented by the minuscule 900-year-old Star Wars character Yoda.
Pusey joined Vodafone from Nortel back in 2006 and was appointed to the board in June 2009. Pusey was a customer product facing business technology leader first and foremost.
“He will leave as his legacy a business strongly placed for success as a result of his efforts, including most recently his leadership of Project Spring which is well on track and already delivering significant benefits for our customers” said Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao.
Wibergh, who currently heads Ericsson’s network business, will join the ranks of Vodafone in May and work on a handover before Pusey retires at the end of July. Among Wibergh’s key priorities will be integrating the fixed-line networks Vodafone recently acquired in Germany and Spain with its existing mobile networks.
