[Ben]

Can't help but think this guy sounds like a safe pair of hands for a corporation, rather than a new visionary for a world-leading mobile operator.


Mobile phone giant Vodafone has chosen the boss of electronics firm Philips as its new chairman.

Gerard Kleisterlee, 64, the president and chief executive at Philips, will take over from Sir John Bond, who is leaving the post in July.

Mr Kleisterlee has been with Philips for 37 years, with nearly 10 years of that in the top position.

Sir John, 69, was the target of a shareholder protest at the last AGM over the firm's takeover strategy.

More than 6% of Vodafone shareholders voted against his reappointment at the annual meeting because they believed deals had damaged the value of the company and its share price.

Sir John welcomed his successor, saying: "I am delighted to announce that Gerard Kleisterlee, a highly successful international businessman whose track record at Philips speaks for itself, will be succeeding me as chairman after my six years on the board of Vodafone."

Challenges facing the company and its new chairman include fierce competition, particularly in emerging markets, and a tightening regulatory regime.

Mr Kleisterlee has spent time in Asia, and is credited with transforming Philips after taking over as chief executive in 2001.

ING analyst John Davies said: "He [Mr Kleisterlee] did a lot of deals at Philips. He simplified and redirected that business which perhaps is what people are hoping he'll be doing over at Vodafone."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12343198

[Hands0n]

I was surprised at the appointment of Sir John Bond. Having worked for him in my time at HSBC and gotten to know something of how he operates it just seemed such an odd fit to put him in Vodafone. Hardly surprising, then, to see the shareholders protest at his making Vodafone an acquisitive company. It is, after all, what HSBC did a lot of under his steerage. They acquired the American bank I used to work for, and lots of other smaller firms as it grew itself.

But mobile network operator and banking giant are two different types of organisation completely. Whereas a bank has only money as its product the likes of Vodafone have some real world systems, devices and services to market. Driving the firm like a bank, a money making machine only, is not the way to operate such a business.

Philips did fall into the doldrums for many years. It is interesting that Mr Kleisterlee has been cited as transforming it. Into what? I would ask. My own impression of Philips is that it is an also-ran European electronics company that is completely uninspiring. But I may be wrong.

Whatever, Vodafone with a new chairman can hardly be worse than under Sir John.

[DBMandrake]

Slightly OT, but it's a real shame to see what's become of Philips in the last 30 years... for anyone older than a certain age, Philips was one of the pioneers of the Electronics industry, and a name that was respected.

They started out manufacturing light bulbs early last century, but soon moved into Electronics, and in the 60's through 80's in particular made some very well respected high quality test instruments (such as Oscilloscopes, signal generators etc) that could compete head on with the likes of Tektronics, Hewlett Packard and so on, they made some very high quality loudspeaker components, (woofers, tweeters etc) were one of the first to produce high quality fully transistorised colour televisions in the late 60's early 70's, and not to mention that they are co-inventor (with Sony) of the CD Audio disc. They also did a lot of published scientific and theoretical research work including in fields such as acoustics.

Then some time beginning in the mid 80's early 90's the rot set in. Despite being one of the big players in providing speaker components in the 60's through 80's they left the OEM market completely by 1990, and although you can still buy cheap Philips branded (complete) loud speakers today, they bear no resemblance to and share no heritage with their golden era in the field, and are poor quality generic devices.

As far as I know they're no longer producing test equipment either, and it's been years since I've read any research papers published by them. In short, they've turned into an also ran generic consumer electronics company whose brand name is the only thing to remain of the Philips of old. It's a real shame to me as I have used a lot of Philips equipment over the years and once had a lot of respect for them.

They're not the only ones either, although not quite to the same extent, the great and mighty Hewlett Packard - one of the best if not THE best manufacturer of Electronics test equipment last century seems to have lost its way also, and now believes itself to be a computer company, but even as a computer company they have floundered with poor management, mergers, and seemingly losing touch with who and what they are.

This seems endemic in the industry, and I wonder how much longer some of the great founding companies in the electronics and technical fields will remain true to themselves ? It seems almost as if some companies lose touch of what they are once the founders have left / been forced out / died and the suits have taken over...

[Ben]

Without wanting to sound too much like a conspiracy theorist nutjob, I think a lot of the rot comes down to the fact that these once highly successful, highly focussed companies have become corporations in every sense of the word.

They diversify, they outsource, they cost-cut, they look only at the bottom line and generating returns for shareholders. The pressure on Vodafone during Sarin's term as CEO appeared to be massively about returning value to shareholders with absolute disregard for anything else. The corporation's objective is to survive and prosper financially, at any cost to anything else.