Liberty Global and Vodafone have named Jeroen Hoencamp CEO and Ritchy Drost chief financial officer of their proposed joint venture in the Netherlands, the companies said Tuesday.
Liberty Global and Vodafone announced the JV in February. The 50-50 partnership, which is still in the regulatory review process, is a combination of Liberty Global's Ziggo Dutch cable operations and Vodafone Netherlands.
Hoencamp is currently the CEO of Vodafone UK. A Dutch citizen, he has led Vodafone’s UK business since September 2013 and was previously Chief Executive of Vodafone Ireland. In addition, Vodafone named Hoencamp CEO OF Vodafone Netherlands, effective Sept. 1.
Drost has been CFO of Ziggo since September 2015. Over a 17-year career with Liberty Global he has held a number of senior management positions including CFO European Broadband Operations and Managing Director and CFO of UPC Netherlands, Liberty’s predecessor Dutch cable operation. Prior to joining Liberty Global, he was an auditor at Arthur Andersen.
“Jeroen and Ritchy are experienced business leaders with extensive operational, strategic and merger integration experience," Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao and Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries said in a joint statement.We are delighted they will be shaping our companies’ shared mission to create a strong and competitive integrated communications provider serving consumers, businesses and public sector customers in the Dutch market."
Additionally, Liberty Global announced that Ziggo CEO Baptiest Coopmans will remain in that position until completion of the transaction, after which he will join the supervisory board of the joint venture as one of Liberty Global’s appointed directors. Coopmans has served as Ziggo CEO since November 2014 and successfully led the merger and integration of UPC and Ziggo.
Vodafone Netherlands CFO Carmen Velthuis will remain in her current position until the merger has completed. Vodafone will announce her subsequent assignment at a later date.
“I am particularly pleased that Baptiest Coopmans has agreed to join the joint venture supervisory board once the transaction is completed," Fries said in a statement. "He is an experienced leader and a trusted member of my executive team whose knowledge of the Dutch broadband and pay TV market will be invaluable. I look forward to working with Baptiest in this new role and exploring other opportunities in the Liberty group.”
