Orange SA appoints chief technology officer and head of human resources

Orange Group today announced that it has appointed Vivek Badrinath to the newly created role of Chief Technology Officer and Steve Olive as Executive Vice-President, People and Communications.

Vivek joins Orange from Thomson India where he spent three years as CEO. Before his role at Thomson, he spent four years at France Telecom in a variety of technical positions focused on interconnection and core network planning and design.

Steve Olive joined Orange in February 2001 and before being appointed to his Orange group role, was responsible for human resources the company in the UK. Prior to his role at Orange, Steve was Director of Human Resources at specialist manufacturer, Scapa Group plc.

For more information, please call the Orange Media Centre on +44 207 984 2000 or +44 7973 201 911.

Notes to Editors

Orange and wirefree are trademarks of Orange PCS. The Orange group is one of the world's largest mobile communications companies, with operations in 19 countries across Europe and beyond. It provides a broad range of personal communications services, including Orange GSM1800 services and other digital cellular telephone services. The Orange brand operates in the UK, France, Switzerland, Romania, Denmark, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Thailand, the Ivory Coast, the Dominican Republic, Cameroon, the Netherlands, Botswana and Madagascar. The Orange group also has controlled operations in Belgium (Mobistar). The Orange group has a joint controlling interest in Egypt (MobiNil) and minority interests in Portugal (Optimus), Austria (One), and Mumbai/India (BPL Mobile). As at the end of December 2003, Orange was the largest mobile operator in both the UK with 13.6 million active customers, and France with 20.3 million registered customers. As at the end of December 2003, Orange controlled companies had over 49 million customers worldwide. Further information about Orange can be found on the Orange website at www.orange.com.