Craig Ehrlich, an Executive Board Member of SUNDAY - the Hong Kong-based mobile phone network operator he launched in 1996 - is today appointed Chairman of the GSM Association's CEO Interim Board.
The GSM Association (GSMA) has the strategic goal of identifying, prioritising and accelerating the development of seamless and consistently available wireless services for consumers to enjoy globally. Its members today serve four out of five mobile phone customers in the world.
Over the last six months, Ehrlich has acted as Chairman of the GSMA's CEO Advisory Board, which devised the landmark structural changes to the governance of the GSMA. Ehrlich will now take over the CEO Interim Board chair prior to the selection and formal approval of the full 23 member CEO Board, which will take place through mid February 2003.
The CEO Interim Board comprises CEO-level representatives of the following network operators: Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, China Mobile, SingTel Group, Cingular Wireless, TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile) Telefonica Moviles, Sonera and AT&T Wireless.
"By getting co-operation, agreement and involvement at Boardroom level among the largest wireless groups, we can unite this industry and drive it forward at an even faster pace," says Ehrlich.
"The introduction of new services - such as 3G - can be achieved with greater speed, clarity and direction when the leading operators communicate and co-operate on the basic technical enablers," he adds.
"In the recent past, our lack of collective focus on key technical enablers has led to piecemeal, fragmented approaches to the delivery of some of the more complex services - such as mobile data and mobile commerce - and this in turn has led inter- operability problems resulting in confusion for our global customer base."
Ehrlich states: "The new Board will target confusion and replace it with clarity. We will prevent fragmentation and instead work together to deliver compelling new interoperable services on a common global platform. That way we, as an industry body will help to increase the values of our members' businesses by delivering the best results, not only for our members but also for all their customers and their shareholders and the global investment community."
Ehrlich has worked in the communications industry for twenty- three years - and has lived and worked in Hong Kong since 1987 when he joined Hutchison. In March 2000, Ehrlich successfully led the IPO of the SUNDAY group both on the NASDAQ and the Hong Kong stock exchange.
