Joel Walters is Group Tax Director at Vodafone PLC headquartered outside of London, England. Prior to joining Vodafone PLC, Joel was Chief Financial Officer for Power Air LLC which was then a start-up trans-Atlantic passenger airline where he was responsible for working closely with the CEO to develop the overall business

strategy. Preceding Power Air LLC, Joel was a Senior Tax Manager at Price Waterhouse in the National Tax Services Group in Washington D.C. He started his tax career at Grant Thornton in the Minneapolis, Minnesota office and then relocated to the Washington D.C. office. Joel Walters earned his BA Degree at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota; a JD Degree from the University of Minnesota Law School; and an LLM Degree from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington D.C. Joel was also both formerly a member of the Minnesota Bar and a Minnesota Certified Public Accountant.

KJ- Please tell me what attracted you to Vodafone PLC?

JW- Vodafone is a fascinating business that has tremendous growth potential in significant parts of the world. There are markets where there still is not a huge market penetration in the core mobile phone business. Beyond that, there is tremendous potential in respect to meeting customer’s total communications needs beyond core mobile business. Vodafone is the biggest mobile phone company in the world by numbers of global customers which gives it an enviable platform to pursue these opportunities. Vodafone has annual revenue around $60 Billion and huge market penetration and I felt that with its expansion potential it was in a great position for the future.

KJ- Is Vodafone a US or a UK company?

JW- Vodafone is traded in both London and New York but is based in the UK. It is headquartered in Newbury which is about 60 miles west of London. By market capitalization, Vodafone is the third largest company in the UK and in the top twenty globally.

KJ- How large is your tax group globally?

JW- We employ about one hundred tax professionals globally. We have about thirty in Newbury and seventy at other locations in operating companies around the world. The operating companies include businesses across Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. We also have investments in other businesses around the world, including the US (Verizon Wireless).

KJ- What business trends do you see from your perspective?

JW- I think it really depends on what part of the world you are talking about. For example, if you look at Western Europe there is a significant level of market penetration of mobile phones. In fact, in some markets in Western Europe you have over 100 percent penetration because some people have two or more mobile devices. There are other parts of the world that are significantly less penetrated; particularly places like China and India where there is still a huge opportunity in terms of getting mobile phones into people’s hands, getting the infrastructure built and expansion of the basic mobile phone business. Interestingly, the US is only at about eighty percent market penetration so there is still actually growth potential in the US just in this space. There is still tremendous expansion potential for the core mobile business in many places around the world. Beyond that even in countries that do have significant market penetration like Western Europe; there is still opportunity in terms of meeting overall customer needs. Depending on where you are, you might be talking about core mobile phone business or expansion into other customer needs.

KJ- It is amazing that anyone can now purchase access to the internet.

JW- Yes, that is right! In transferring media, data, internet access and overall communication there is still so much potential out there. Vodafone is a company that has a wide range of services that can meet customers’ personal and business needs so there is a huge opportunity globally. We are again, with our customer, our global network and our scale, uniquely positioned to deliver on a global basis.

KJ- Readers will be interested to know about your transition from a Lead Tax role to a CFO role to a Lead Tax role.

JW- I believe that doing some non tax roles reinforces to me, and what we really try to create in Vodafone as we did at Diageo, is to try to view ourselves as business partners with tax expertise as opposed to “tax people”. What I mean is that we have a depth of expertise in a technical area being tax. Beyond that, we need to be rounded finance professionals who are helping our business succeed by partnering with them, helping them think about how they structure their business, how they operate their business and how they deliver maximum returns in an after tax basis. It was a good experience to get out of tax and be reminded of what a finance person does generally in terms of driving the business. You then come back in to tax and think of yourself in a different way. I am a finance partner, and by the way I’ve got experience and expertise in tax that I can bring to help the business succeed.

KJ-What was it like for you to make the transition from working in the US to working in the UK?

JW- There is two parts to this question, the professional side and the personal side. The professional side is challenging because you are dealing with a different environment. I think if you view yourself as a finance professional, as a business partner, business manager and a leader, those types of skills transfer across jurisdictions readily which gives you a platform that you can then fill in with a growing understanding all of the nuances of tax, other pertinent laws and regulations. If you start with the approach of viewing yourself as a finance professional first, a lot of those characteristics of leadership, management judgment and partnering translates and just comes with you. It becomes less of a difficult professional transition than it might otherwise be if you viewed yourself as purely a US tax expert who is now trying to be a UK tax expert. Part of this is challenging and it is certainly not easy, but it was not as hard as it might seem.
Personally it was very challenging. My family and I initially made the same mistake that I think many people make moving from the US to the UK and I suspect that people moving from the UK to the US make as well. You fall into a mindset of “how difficult could it be?” It is a common language, a lot of American culture and the legal system is based on the British system and culture. If you were to move to Tokyo you could easily understand how hard it would be. When you move to another English speaking country which has many similarities to the US you think it will not be similarly difficult. However, this shows a real misunderstanding of the depth of the differences in the two countries, cultures and ways of life. In this regard, we made that mistake of coming over and thinking that it would be easy. Like many people after a year or two we came to the realization that it is actually a difficult transition. It really is different and you have to take a deep breath and start over again. This time you say to yourself “This is not as easy as I thought it was going to be. Let’s start over”. Once we did that it fell into place. It has been a great experience. We have now lived in the UK for ten years and we are very happy here.

KJ- There was a time you worked at PW in the National Tax Services Office in Washington D.C. What was that professional experience like for you?

JW- It was just a terrific experience! It was one of the best professional experiences of my career and I am really convinced that it made a significant difference from that point going forward with my career. During the time I was in the National Tax Services office in Washington D.C., it was perceived as one of the best offices, if not the best. This experience forced me to think about the policy aspects of what was happening behind tax law. It really got you to think not just about what the words say in the law and regulations but what it is that whoever wrote this was trying to accomplish. What was the objective? What were they trying to achieve? And for the rest of your career, you can’t just read the law in isolation ever again because you have been trained to think of it this way. You automatically think about the person who drafted this…What were they thinking? What were they trying to accomplish? Now I will apply that law to my facts, my circumstances and think, “Was this intended to be included? How should it apply based on that intent?” I think that really makes a difference from that point going forward in how you read the law and how you apply it. I think it was a tremendous experience and I don’t think I ever would have done a lot of things I have done if I had not spent that time in Washington D.C.

KJ- Reflecting on the past, present and future, what vision does the future hold for your industry?

JW- Clearly, what we are seeing is the blurring of the lines in telecommunications. In some ways, you get all of the benefits of being able to see your emails or be in contact with your office anywhere you are in the world at any time of the day or night. It is a tremendous benefit but what you also see is that in the past, when you left the office, you left your office; but now you never leave the office. The office is always in your pocket and all of a sudden the lines between when you are at work, when you are at play, when you are on holiday and when you are not…starts to become blurred. I think we will continue to see a world in which boundaries disappear and some of that will be really great because you will be able to do anything you want, anytime. It may sometimes be a burden because you will never be able to walk away and close the door. I do not think we are finished with this yet as the technology continues to evolve.

KJ- Joel, thank you for the time you gave us to answer our questions. Your perspective is valuable to the Tax Intelligence Report readers around the world. We genuinely appreciate the time you gave to share your experience.

Joel Walters (JW)
Group Head of Tax, Vodafone

If you would like an introduction to Vodafone or if you would like to send a private email to Joel Walters, please contact Kathleen Jennings at Kathleen@etsearch.com.