20 years have flown by for me at Vodafone – here’s why

As a global brand, Vodafone’s scale and breadth has given me ample opportunity to develop my career without needing to move externally. I’ve been working here for 20 years now, and sure, there have been times when I have been tempted by external roles, but whenever I have got itchy feet, I've always seemed to find a way to scratch that itch within Vodafone. The power of the brand and the resources available have enabled me to achieve amazing things that I would not have been able to accomplish in a smaller company.

My passion for innovation and new technology has led me to my current role in the Innovation team. As Senior Innovation Manager in UK Products and Propositions, I have been able to drive award-winning projects and industry firsts in 5G - and I absolutely love my job. It allows me to apply my technical skills and experience in a customer-facing environment, to develop new service offerings, and to influence Vodafone product strategy and roadmap.

From technical pre-sales to leading the Innovation team in the UK

I was hired at Vodafone initially as a pre-sales solution architect for a company called Energis, which was acquired by Cable & Wireless, which then became Vodafone. Along the way I have progressed through management and leadership roles, all in support of business customers, and worked in both Vodafone Group and UK OpCo.

For my first role (technical pre-sales, sometimes referred to as sales engineering) I had to have an in-depth understanding of Vodafone Business products and capability, and be able to apply our technologies to address customer needs. I’ve designed network solutions for diverse customers such as RSA, Virgin Atlantic, English Heritage and VOSA - you have to learn a lot about how these different businesses operate, which is really interesting to me.

After taking on people management and leading a number of pre-sales teams in the UK, I was asked to take over the team that focused on solutions in our Mobility portfolio. This enabled me to acquire a new skillset and presented an opportunity to move into Vodafone Global Enterprise to lead the Northern European Mobility Specialist team. We evolved that group into Vodafone Consulting and Innovation and I took on responsibility for our Digital Transformation practice. When we moved some Group Enterprise functions back to our local markets I returned to the UK pre-sales team, this time concentrating on developing our Mobile Private Networks strategy. I was key to establishing Vodafone in this market, delivering some of the first MPNs to UK customers such as Coventry University and National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS).

I joined the Innovation team in the UK as an enthusiastic proponent of a new 5G feature called 'slicing', and I've had the opportunity to find some very cool ways to apply this capability to our customers’ business problems. Working closely with our delivery teams in networks, I collaborated with media company ITN and their technology partners to bring the live broadcast of the King's Coronation to an estimated global audience of 400 million people using a 5G network 'slice'. This project was a UK technology first, and went on to win best innovation at Connected Britain 2023, and also at the Mobile Industry Awards later that year.

I've repeated the success of the Coronation with other newsworthy projects this year, applying it to contactless card payments for drinks at Glastonbury 2024. I also worked with another media company to ensure they were able to distribute the first press images of Sir Kier Starmer as the new Prime Minister live from No 10 Downing Street, photos that appeared around the world in publications such as The Guardian, New York Times and Paris Match.

I’m guaranteed a busy future at Vodafone

I love the ability my job gives me to make an impact with disruptive technology. In the near term, I'm focused on delivering value through scaling the tech I've been working with, from proof-of-concept to revenue generating product. We have some other projects in the pipeline as well that I can't talk about yet, but they are also going to be very big.

I firmly believe that our strength at Vodafone is in our diversity, and I get a lot of joy from working in a culture that supports and encourages that. We have some incredibly smart and motivated people that have helped me on the way, many of whom have become lifelong friends. As an innovation leader there is always something new coming down the track, a different problem to solve or technology to learn, and every day feels like a school day.

Right now we have a dynamic and evolving competitive environment in the UK, so it's sometimes hard to look too far ahead. However, long term I'm really excited about the opportunities of AI and what happens after 5G. Creating the Future is a key part of the Spirit of Vodafone, so I'm confident that whatever happens I'm going to be kept very busy!