Vodafone board inducts a surprise member

Vodafone, which recently acquired control of Indian mobile player Hutch-Essar from Hong-Kong based Hutchison Telecom on Thursday appointed to its board a former group managing director at HTIL's parent company Hutchison Whampoa.

Vodafone said in a statement on Thursday that Simon Murray, who held various positions in Asia at Deutsche Bank, Jardine Matheson besides HWL, would join its board as as non-executive director with effect from July 1.

Murray was known as HWL's billionaire Chairman Li Ka-Shing's right hand man during his nine-year stint with the group and pioneered Hutchison Group's foray into the mobile business.

As the group managing director at HWL, Murray oversaw the development and launch of mobile telecommunications networks in many parts of the world, Vodafone said.

Vodafone Chairman John Bond said, "His considerable knowledge of mobile telecommunications and his entrepreneurial spirit, coupled with his vast experience of the Asia-Pacific

region, will be a great asset to the company."

UK-born Murray, 67, currently serves as an independent non-executive director at HWL and has been on board since 1984. He had begun his business career with Jardine Matheson in Hong Kong and joined Hutchison Whampoa in 1984 as a group managing director, a position from which he had resigned in 1993 to join Deutsche Bank as its Asia Pacific executive chairman.

After leaving Hutchison Whampoa, Murray also co-founded Distacom, a mobile telecommunication operation in India, Japan and Hong Kong. Murray will replace Lord Broers as non-executive director on Vodafone's board.

• The race for Hutch-Essar