Gossip

And what is all this "pasta" fetish at Vodafone?

It's only a month since Vodafone announced that Vittorio Colao "will join the Board on 9th October 2006 as Chief Executive of Vodafone's European region." None of the senior Vodafone staff in Germany, or the UK, saw that as a cue to become fixated on Italy. So why, suddenly, are they all trying to become best mates with anybody whose name ends in 'o' or 'i' ?

The fact is, the penny has dropped inside the UK offices in Newbury: "Italy and Spain are doing well, Germany and Britain are not." And Vittorio is, effectively, running the show now, as the main board gets to grips with the depth of the threat to Vodafone's global integrity.

Great guy, Vittorio. He really is an amazing executive, and any success Vodafone had in Italy is no coincidence: he was the mainspring, say insiders, behind the italian company's new reputation for being well managed.

If only he trusted people who aren't Italian, eh?

But he really doesn't. And so if you're HR inside any European mobile telco, and need a few more over-paid senior executives who have failed to turn Vodafone UK around and aren't Italian, you can expect to have a nice long short-list to choose from.

Mind you, it will cost you to hire these guys. I know of half a dozen or so of them who will save Vodafone UK about £12m a year in total, once their golden handshakes are written off. And I think about 200 more with expensive sports cars will be hoping for a new company car to go with their new job, too!