New Vodafone CEO Margherita Della Valle faces tough calls ahead

When Vodafone named Margherita Della Valle as CEO last month, investors adopted a wait-and-see approach to whether the company veteran was the right person to jolt it out of a deep malaise.

Within weeks, Della Valle gave them a stark assessment of the problems Vodafone faces. The reaction has been brutal, with the company’s shares sliding to 20-year lows.

Della Valle, an Italian who joined Vodafone in 1994 and had been its chief financial officer since 2018, vowed on Tuesday to cut 11,000 of 90,000 jobs and speed up the delivery of new offers by giving local country bosses greater autonomy.