Margherita Della Valle

Margherita Della Valle’s story at Vodafone started when she joined as employee No. 25 at the Italian mobile startup that would eventually become Vodafone Italy. Three decades later, she found herself running the entire group and becoming the rare woman to lead a FTSE 100 company. The turnaround she inherited was daunting: a sprawling, underperforming empire with a floundering share price and skeptical investors. Her response was aggressive portfolio surgery—divesting Vodafone’s operations in Spain and Italy and completing a landmark merger with Three UK in 2025, positioning Vodafone as the country’s largest mobile operator. Della Valle announced in May 2026 that Vodafone would take full ownership of the merged entity. For fiscal year 2026, revenue grew 8% to $45.68 billion, and operating profit rose to $3.16 billion. She returned $3.5 billion to shareholders, and the dividend increased for the first time in eight years.