Graham Edward Howe (born 23 May 1961) is a British entrepreneur and businessman who founded

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

with

Hans Snook Hans Roger Snook (born 26 May 1948) is a British businessman, best known for his time as the founder (with Graham Howe) and chief executive of British mobile phone company Orange. Early life He was born to a German mother and a British father, a ...

Early life

He was born in

St Albans St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major ...

. He went to St Albans Grammar School for Boys (now known since 1975 as the comprehensive

Verulam School Verulam School is a state secondary school for boys with academy status in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, founded in 1938 as St Albans Boys' Modern School. The name was changed in the 1940s to St Albans Grammar School for Boys and in 1975 ...

), and later attended the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

where he obtained a

Bachelor of Commerce A Bachelor of Commerce (abbreviated BComm or BCom; also, ''baccalaureates commercii'') is an undergraduate degree in business, usually awarded in Canada, Australia, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Ireland, New Zealand, Ghana, South Africa, Myanmar, ...

Career

Graham began his career at Touche Ross (now

Deloitte LLP Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of profession ...

) working in the Manchester audit department. He became ACA qualified before moving down to London to work for Touche Ross Consulting. In the late 80s he moved to Hong Kong where he met Hans Snook whilst working at Hutchison Whampoa. Hans Snook had the ideas for Orange. However it was Graham Howe who would get the company off the ground. They met in 1992. Orange launched in April 1994. It floated on the London Stock Exchange and on the Nasdaq in April 1996. Howe and Snook's partnership helped take the company to unprecedented heights. Their partnership, as detailed in Sven-Goran Ericsson's book 'Leadership the Sven-Goran Eriksson way', was highly successful and was compared to that of Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Brian Clough and Peter taylor. In October 1999, Orange UK was bought for £21bn by

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

-based

Mannesmann Mannesmann was a German industrial conglomerate. It was originally established as a manufacturer of steel pipes in 1890 under the name "Deutsch-Österreichische Mannesmannröhren-Werke AG". (Loosely translated: "German-Austrian Mannesmann pi ...

AG, then run by Klaus Esser. Howe and Snook reportedly earn't £29m and £45m respectively from the crystallisation of share options post acquisition. In early 2000,

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public limited company, plc () is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Telephone company, telecommunications company. Its registered office and Headquarters, global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It ...

bought Mannesmann in a hostile takeover, and Vodafone was forced to sell Orange UK, which was bought by France Telecom (now known since August 2000 as

Orange S.A. Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, ...

) for £26bn. On 7 May 2002, Howe became Chief Operating Officer of Orange S.A. having been Chief Financial Officer of the Group (former France Telecom). He left as deputy Chief Executive of

on 24 March 2003SEC
/ref> when Jean-François Pontal also retired as Chief Executive. In June 2003 he took up the role of Senior Non Executive Director of Cable & Wireless. A position he held for 3 years before moving to become Chairman of the global education technology company Promethean. Graham was Chairman of Promethean for 10 years before retiring in October 2015.

Personal life

He is married to Jane, and has three sons (born May 1993, February 1996, and September 1998). He lives in

Harpenden Harpenden () is a town and civil parish in the City and District of St Albans in the county of Hertfordshire, England. The population of the built-up area was 30,240 in the 2011 census, whilst the population of the civil parish was 29,448. Har ...

, home of the former Sir Edward Salisbury FRS, the famous botanist. He married Caroline Jane Doyle on 28 December 1991 in

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

References

External links

Biography on his website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Howe, Graham 1961 births Alumni of the University of Birmingham British technology company founders British telecommunications industry businesspeople English company founders History of mobile telecommunications in the United Kingdom Orange S.A. People from Harpenden People from St Albans Living people