Sabrina Casalta works well under pressure. And the new Vodafone Ireland chief has had plenty of it to test her, whether it is in the executive boardroom or on one of her road trips that turn out to be a little more challenging than you would expect.
Casalta says she likes to be forced out of her comfort zone and, with travel, there is always the potential for things to go wrong. A recent 300km trip in Mozambique threw up some interesting obstacles. “It took 12 hours. The road was foggy, there were points where you couldn’t see two metres ahead. The road was ruined by massive holes from the civil war, and there were lots of people and students walking to school on the side of the road,” she recalls. “I was responsible for making the plans. And I was the one driving for the 12 hours.”
The move from Vodafone Italy in the wake of its €8 billion sale to Swisscom to head the Irish business is her latest challenge.
“Being a CEO was actually not in my plan,” she says. “I don’t think there is the ‘final job’. It’s a journey.”
READ MORE
Caslta’s career is not what you would describe as linear.
“I’m not a vertical expert in one area or another. I went through different experiences and I think they were all built around curiosity, and adding pieces and tools to my skills in order to always have a broader impact.”
After graduating with a masters in management engineering, Casalta began working as a consultant, first with PricewaterhouseCoopers (now PwC), and subsequently with Boston Consulting Group. That involved working across multiple industries, focusing mainly on strategy and business transformation but not in financial services and telecoms.
Then, 14 years ago, she took up a role with Vodafone.
“When I got the chance to join Vodafone, I said, why not? It’s a new area, something new to learn and to understand.”
“Why not” seems to be what drives her. After joining Vodafone Italy in a strategy role, she moved on to become an integral part of its fibre services launch, and the early days of its 5G trials. “We started with the very early trial and experimentation into 5G, some of them even before the standard of the technology was completely defined,” she says.
Her most significant experience, she says, came later when she joined Vodafone’s business customer care team, just as the Covid-19 lockdowns began in Northern Italy. Again, “why not?” came into play.
“It was quite a big change for me, coming from strategy perspective. I completely changed my time horizon. When you work on strategy, you work on three, five years perspective; in customer operations, you have to deliver consistently, every single hour, every single day, across team of hundreds of people,” she says. “I think that the learning was on the execution side, but most importantly on the people management side.”
In February 2022, she became chief financial officer of the business, staying in the role for almost three years until the business was sold. That was when the ambition to take on a chief executive role kicked in.
“I realised that all the experience I had, they all made sense together because they gave me the broader perspective about the market, the customer, the collaboration of the partnership, long term but also short term,” she says. “At that point, I said, okay, my next role, or at a certain point in my career, I would like to be in a CEO role.”
When Vodafone decided to sell off the Italian business to Swisscom, the opportunity presented itself and Casalta was named interim chief executive, managing the transition.
“My ambition meshed with an opportunity,” she says.
Vodafone has a history of appointing strong women leaders for its Irish business. Casalta replaced Amanda Nelson, who had taken over the role from Anne O’Leary in August 2022.
Originally from a small town between Milan and Lake Como, you might expect the move to Ireland would be something of a culture shock for Casalta, if only for the weather. But summer 2025 was, says Met Éireann, one of the warmest on record for the State. And Casalta is no stranger to colder winters.
The people, she says, are not so different either, although picking up on the Irish slang is a work in progress.
“What I’ve realised so far is that there is not a huge difference. I think there is one commonality between probably Italy and Ireland – that people really care about connection and personal relationship,” she says. “This is something that, personally, I’m finding helpful because people really care. They really want to connect.
“It is definitely an extremely collaborative environment. People are approachable, really open to work together and potentially more agile in making some changes happen, again because there are close personal relationships that made things easier.”
Ireland is a vibrant, energetic environment with lots of opportunity and discussion going on, she says, putting it in a unique position in Europe in terms of the ecosystem of players that are present.
“The telecommunications market in Ireland is a growing market, while in Italy it is not. And this is, I think, a great opportunity for a company like Vodafone, because it gives us the option to keep investing in innovation that is at the heart of our DNA and the way we really want to serve the customer and serve the market.”
Among those innovations is real-time texting, an accessibility feature that allows users to type and read text instantly, with characters appearing on the screen while they are being typed during a voice call. It is particularly beneficial for those with a hearing or speech impairment, and opens up access to emergency services.
The Siro joint venture Vodafone has with the ESB has also had an impact, not just on Ireland’s broadband landscape but on the wider European approach for Vodafone.
“It was a brave move from the Irish team here at that time, going to our group – an incredibly supportive shareholders for us, but still – asking for hundreds of millions of investment into a venture that, at that time, was unique in the world. Partnering with the electricity network to deploy fibre in the country was a very innovative idea at that time. There was no example [to refer back to].
“And they made it; they got the investment. Everyone was really committed,” she says.
“At that time 10 years ago, I was in Italy, working in the strategy and marketing team, figuring out how to get access to fibre in Italy, because all the broadband in Italy was delivered on to traditional copper line. We were looking for ideas and inspiration. And I remember being on a call with an Irish colleague, trying to understand better what the operating model was at that time, to see if there was any space to replicate in Italy.”
It was replicated, with Open Fiber established to drive the fibre adoption, although Vodafone was not a shareholder. That triggered others in the market to deploy fibre and upgrade their network, she says.
Casalta has joined Vodafone Ireland at a time of change for the telecoms industry, globally and within Vodafone itself. The company has not only sold off its Italian business to Swisscom, but it is also on the verge of completing a merger with Three in the UK. That would create a significant player in the UK market.
Industry watchers may be curious about the knock-on effect for Vodafone Ireland. With the two territories so closely intertwined, there has been speculation about what it means for Vodafone’s Irish business.
We have been here before, however. When Telefónica sold its O2 Ireland unit to Three Ireland, it turned the latter into the Irish mobile market leader. But the UK business remained untouched.
“Each market is different in terms of set-up, in terms of Vodafone presence and starting position,” says Casalta. “Ireland is in an amazing position to keep investing. We have been the first one in this country to optimise our network in terms of, for example, shutting down the 3G layer to free up capacity and provide a better service to our 4G and 5G customers. There are lots of innovations that will come in the coming months.”
Vodafone has invested heavily in 5G, and has begun rolling out initiatives such as 5G in a box, and closed networks. Is the investment paying off?
“Roughly 25 per cent of our traffic is on the 5G network and, of course, we expect it to grow further in the coming years,” says Casalta.
That may not seem like much when you consider the availability of services. But while the jump from 3G to 4G was largely consumer led, the 5G implementation is more about connecting devices rather than people.
Much of the talk about 5G has focused on what it will enable with the Internet of Things. Customers may also need to upgrade handsets to take full advantage of the 5G network, Casalta says, although most new devices now ship with 5G features.
With AI dominating the headlines these days, it is no surprise that Vodafone is dabbling in it. The company has invested €10 million in its customer service operations over the past three years, part of which went on digital assistant, Tobi. As of last month, the AI-powered offering was resolving 60 per cent of customer queries first time.
That gives Vodafone an advantage in its eyes, making customer care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That means customers can access bills, have queries solved and make changes to their plans when it suits them, but without the additional pressure of having a fully staffed team on hand just in case. And it has helped reduce customer complaints.
“Technology has given us the opportunity to provide a 24-hour customer care service to all our customers, leveraging AI first and then Gen AI. We’re now looking into the agentic AI,” says Casalta. “What we are seeing is a journey, but I think that technology has to be embraced at the beginning and then make it mature and understand what matters and what really has an impact on the business.”
It hasn’t all been plain sailing for the company. One of Vodafone’s more controversial moves has been to introduce regular price increases for contract customers.
“We live in a phase of inflation and increasing cost of living,” she says, pointing to increased energy costs as an example. “If we compare with other services, like utilities for example that in the last five years have gone up by probably 20, 30 per cent in a compound way, the price of telecommunication services has gone down by 35-40 per cent while demand has increased. Today, we manage on our network almost three times the volume of data and traffic we used to have five years ago.
“For us, it’s important to keep the trust of our customer. That’s why the price increase applies. It’s clearly and transparently communicated when the customer signs the contract.”
That push for transparency stretches into her own working environment. Our interview takes place in Casalta’s office in Leopardstown, South Dublin, which has a view that stretches as far as Dublin Bay and glass walls that mean there are few barriers between Casalta and her staff.
In a prominent position is a recent card from a customer, Brian from Howth, who wrote to tell her about a good experience he had in a Vodafone store. It is a reminder, she says, that Vodafone can have a real impact on its customers.
“We have customers who have been with us for 20 years or even more. It really means they trust us. And why they trust us is because this company and the people who work in this company have been able to deliver excellent services over time.
“One of the things that really impressed me is the level of innovation that Ireland has been able to deliver, and keeps on investing delivering in this country.” she says. “For me, this is an expectation and a promise that is important not to break.”
CV
Name: Sabrina Casalta
Age: 45
Position: Chief executive, Vodafone Ireland
Lives: Ballsbridge, Dublin
Hobbies: Pilates, reading, travelling, and hiking.
Something you might expect: She embraces change, and is focused on transparency and customer outcomes.
Something that might surprise: She enjoys long road trips to unusual destinations: driving is her favourite way to explore and discover new places
