Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin is one of the highest paid head of a British company. Mr. Sarin's pay-cheques last year read something like this: he collected £2.7m by exercising share options and his pay and benefits package was worth a cool £4.9m.
Share option windfalls at Vodafone have been something of a novelty, as the group's shares never regained the dizzying heights achieved in the technology boom of the 1990s.
Mr. Sarin had held on to options from US firm AirTouch, which became a Vodafone subsidiary. Just before Christmas, he sold 5m New York-listed Vodafone shares at about $2.75. He appears to have made a small fortune of £2.7m from selling the shares at 148p. This sale is registered in Vodafone's annual report, which also shows Mr. Sarin enjoyed £2.5m in pay, benefits and bonuses for the year that ended in March.
So what is behind the secret behind the rise of Arun Sarin? Speaking at an interview recently, Mr. Sarin said, "The power of the leadership role in some ways is to encourage others in an organization to shine and for them to do great things. So I start from that position and then I get involved in those areas where I feel my personal involvement can make a difference."
Asked if he thought that organizations were getting saddled with too many smart people, Mr. Sarin replied, "You can have too many smart people who are not alike. That may be an issue, but I don't think you can have too many smart people who are aligned. My view is you want to find the best talent. I'm a big believer in hiring absolutely the best people, better than me, smarter than me, because frankly they will be the future leaders of this company in time."
Asked what his legacy would be, Mr. Sarin commented, "I guess the legacy for me would be that we're taking Vodafone and making it into a truly world class organization. We introduce new products, as we integrate the company, as we put a sense of urgency into the culture. The people will look three, four, five years from now and say -- much like we have other companies that we think of when we say -- 'what a great company' because it produces outstanding managers. I would like to think of Vodafone as being a leader in the mobile space, being a world-class company in terms of its processes and producing world-class executive talent."
Posted
on : Sat, 11 Jun 2005 11:50 GMT | Business News
By : Chris Rowe
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