Sir Christopher Gent

Sir Christopher Gent began his career as a management trainee at National Westminster Bank, before going on to work at Schroder Computer Services and ICL. He joined Vodafone as managing director in 1985, when the mobile phone service was first launched in the UK, and became chief executive in 1997. Under his leadership Vodafone was transformed from a UK-focused business with four million customers, into a global player with interests in more than twenty countries. He retired from Vodafone in July 2003. Sir Christopher has been chairman of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) since January 2005. He is a non-executive director of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, a non-executive director of Ferrari spa, a member of the Financial Reporting Council Limited, a senior adviser
at Bain & Co and a member of the Advisory Board of Reform.