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Mr Sarin, who replaced Sir Christopher at the head of Vodafone in 2003, began his career in telecoms almost 25 years ago

It has included a stint with Pacific Telesis Group in San Francisco, after which he joined its subsidary AirTouch as chief operating officer.

When AirTouch was taken over by Vodafone, Mr Sarin became chief executive of the US and Asia-Pacific operations, also joining Vodafone’s main board. Mr Sarin was appointed chief executive of Vodafone when investors wanted the company to concentrate on managing its businesses efficiently and returning cash to shareholders, after its dramatic takeover-driven expansion between 1999 and 2002.

After the group’s shares fell by 1.5 per cent in 2006, they have risen 14.06 per cent to 163.3p in the past year, giving a market capitalisation of almost £87 billion.

As well as success in emerging markets, Mr Sarin has also seen revenues rise thanks to data traffic. Last year revenues from this area — the downloading of music clips, e-mailing and so on — surged nearly 50 per cent in the first half to £1 billion. Data revenues now account for 7.3 per cent of the group’s total Western European revenues.

The improvement does little, however, to justify the £6 billion splashed out by the group on its 3G licence during frenzied bidding at the height of the dot-com boom.

During his five-year tenure, he has turned around Vodafone’s prospects, amid indications that consumers are banishing their reluctance to spend on more lucrative services, instead of just calling and texting.

In the current environment the group’s diversified geographic portfolio and, critically, its exposure to markets outside the UK and the US are a big plus. Although a foothold in such markets does not come cheap — it spent $11.1 billion (£5.7 billion) for a 67 per cent stake in Hutchison Essar, India’s fourth-biggest mobile operator, last year — Vodafone has presented sound evidence of a good payback.

At the end of last year, Vodafone’s £5 billion bid to extend its half share of Vodacom, a South African mobile operator, collapsed. Telkom, with which Vodafone co-owns Vodacom, called off talks after several months.

Mr Sarin has also served as a director of Gap, the retailer, Charles Schwab, the investment group, and Cisco Systems, the network equipment group. In 2005 he was appointed a non-executive director of the Bank of England.

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