Vodafone's Chris Gent: No need for rainmakers in the UK?

Earlier this year, silicon.com asked a panel of users, analysts and politicians to name the most influential person in the European high-tech landscape.

One man's name rose to the top: Chris Gent.

In a field crowded with business visionaries, high-tech gurus and mega deal-makers, Gent, CEO of Vodafone AirTouch, was named top of the Agenda Setters 2000 list (see http://www.silicon.com/AGENDA2000/as2000.html)

Once you get behind his image as an affable cricket lover who can charm financiers, the media and potential rivals alike, Gent emerges as a strong-willed executive with an impressive track record.

He has created what is frequently Europe's largest company by market capitalisation, brokered mould-breaking takeovers around the world (notably in the US and Germany), and built his company into the world's largest mobile telephony operator. To borrow a competitor's slogan, the future looks bright.

However, not everyone is happy with the rewards Gent is now enjoying. The National Association of Pension Funds is calling for large investors in Vodafone AirTouch not to support a £10m bonus heading Gent's way, principally for the Mannesmann deal at the start of this year.

They object to his pay packet and the structure of the contracts Gent and other top Vodafone executives now command.

Is Gent's remuneration obscene? Of course it is. However, peers in the same business as him - some even at companies now in the Vodafone stable - have had greater windfalls in return for brokering deals which pale into insignificance compared with the $176bn Mannesmann takeover.

As the highly paid chief executive of arguably the UK's most successful company, Gent should not be criticised like this.

But he should be warned: given his company's strong current position and the growth potential of the industry in which it operates, any future slip-ups won't be tolerated.