Double blow for Vodafone

Vodafone suffered a double blow yesterday as it lost two of its senior executives, the chief executive of its troubled Japanese business and the highly regarded head of its southern Europe unit.

The company announced that Mr Darryl Green, chief executive of the Japanese business, had resigned "for personal reasons".

Vodafone said Mr Brian Clark, head of the group's operations in the Asia Pacific region, would take over temporarily as president of its Japan units, and it had started the search for a permanent replacement for Mr Green.

The news hit Vodafone shares, which slid 1p to 121¾p yesterday against an otherwise robust market, as the management changes unsettled investors already worried about the intensifying challenges the company is facing.

The firm has more than 400,000 Irish shareholders.

The departure of Mr Green, who has headed the Japanese unit for two and a half years, was widely expected and highlights the difficulty the group has faced in Japan where it reported a sharp decline in operating profits last year.

Following weeks of speculation, the UK-based group also confirmed that Mr Vittorio Colao, a group board member, was leaving to become chief executive of RCS MediaGroup, Italy's leading publishing house, whose senior executives were recently ousted by shareholders.