Bond to step down as Vodafone chairman

2nd Feb 2011 07:44

Sir John Bond is to relinquish the chairman role of mobile phone network giant Vodafone at the company's annual general meeting in July.He will be succeeded as chairman by Gerard Kleisterlee, currently president and chief executive officer and chairman of the board of management and the group management committee of Dutch consumer electronics titan Philips. Kleisterlee will be retiring from Philips on 31 March 2011 and will be appointed as a non-executive director of Vodafone on 1 April 2011.In addition to his role at Philips, Kleisterlee has been a member of the German motor company Daimler's supervisory board since April 2009, a non-executive director of the supervisory board and member of the audit committee of oil group Royal Dutch Shell since November 2010, and a member of the board of directors of computer seller Dell since December 2010.Bond has been chairman of Vodafone since July 2006, and was formerly chairman of HSBC at a time when the bank made its uncharacteristically ill judged acquisition of US sub-prime lender Household International.His departure from Vodafone is not entirely unexpected after a protest vote, led by the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, was lodged against his re-election last August. Around 6.5% of Vodafone shareholders voted against his re-election.