Dr. Philippe Vogeleer

Dr. Philippe Vogeleer is a London-based board director and technology industry leader with more than 25 years of experience across business, governance and development finance. He is one of very few professionals worldwide to hold both the UK Institute of Directors (IoD) Chartered Director and the US NACD Director certifications, and he has served on the IoD Council since April 2025. A Belgian-British national, he has lived in ten countries and worked in more than 100. He is fluent in English, French, Italian and Dutch, and reads Spanish, German and Portuguese.

He trained as a technology lawyer, with a Master's in Law from the Université Catholique de Louvain, postgraduate diplomas in telecom and competition law, a Master's in Media and Communications Management from Stirling, and an Executive MBA from INSEAD. His early career combined legal, regulatory and government affairs work, then moved into country operations, strategy and international business development. He has led teams of up to 3,000 people and held full P&L responsibility.

His executive career spans some of the largest names in telecoms. He began at Deloitte, where he became the firm's youngest manager. At Orange (France Telecom) he rose to Chief Strategy Officer for the Africa, Middle East and Asia division. At Ooredoo he served simultaneously as Deputy CEO, General Counsel and IPO co-lead, delivering a successful listing of the Group's Oman subsidiary. At Vodafone, from 2011 to 2024, he became Global Head of Corporate Business Development, reporting to two successive CEOs. There he built an investment framework combining equity, debt and insurance, and led Vodafone's largest emerging-market win in 25 years: a USD 8.5 billion consortium investment in Ethiopia. He also helped assemble the largest World Bank equity, debt and insurance package of its kind.

Today he holds a portfolio of non-executive roles. He sits on the board of Nasdaq-listed Freedom Holding Corp, where he chairs the Nomination and Governance Committee, and on several related boards: Freedom Bank France, Freedom Bank Japan and Freedom Cloud Holding. He is also a board member of Tethercells and Begini, a board member of Verysell and chair of VeryPay. At Sumitomo Corporation he is Non-Executive Ambassador to the ICT industry, the first non-Japanese non-executive in the firm's 450-year history. His earlier board roles included Safaricom, Vodacom, Vodafone, Ooredoo and France Telecom.

His advisory work includes the governance committee of Nexus Automotive International and a visiting lectureship at INSEAD since 2019, where he teaches digital transformation, international business development and public-private partnership structuring. He has supported Global Citizen since its founding, and has been a non-executive supporter of Women in Tech since 2024, which reflects his view that commercial success and social impact go together.

His board competencies fall into five areas: strategy and international growth, including M&A and market entry; governance, including audit, risk and compensation; technology oversight across fintech, telecoms, satellite, AI and payments; stakeholder relations with regulators, governments and development finance institutions; and capital markets, including IPOs and financing structures. His work has earned several industry awards, including Best Investment in the World and Best Telecom Deal of the Year.