New Delhi: Aricent, a global innovation, technology and services company focused on communications, today announced Arun Sarin to its Board of Directors. Sarin is currently a senior advisor at KKR, and prior to that served as CEO of mobile telecommunications leader Vodafone Group, PLC. "The one common thread today in telecom is meeting consumers ever growing expectations for innovative products and services," said Arun Sarin, board member at Aricent. "Innovation and technology are so tightly coupled today that operators' cannot look at them separately." Sarin's career began at Pacific Telesis Group (PTG), where he pioneered the expansion of the mobile communications industry by acquiring numerous domestic and international cellular licenses. He held several senior roles at PTG over the next decade. In 1994, he led the review and recommendation for the spinoff of the wireless businesses from PTG, which became AirTouch Communications. Subsequently, he was appointed as President and COO of AirTouch in 1997. With the 1999 merger of Vodafone and AirTouch, Sarin became CEO of Vodafone's U.S./Asia Pacific region. He left Vodafone in 2000 and rejoined as Chief Executive Officer in 2003. Sarin then led the company's re-entry into the Indian market in 2007, and also acquired several other mobile operators in high growth regions such as Turkey, Ghana, Romania, Czech Republic and Qatar. In his five years as CEO, Vodafone returned capital of approximately £34 billion to shareholders including dividends and buy backs. Sarin is a member of the Boards of Directors of Cisco Systems, Charles Schwab, and Safeway. He has served on numerous Boards in the past, including Gap, and as a Non-Executive Director of the Court of the Bank of England. He has an MS in Engineering and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley. He received his BS in Engineering from IIT, the Indian Institute of Technology. "Arun's intimate knowledge of the challenges operators face to deliver innovative subscriber experiences in the face of unprecedented technology complexity will provide invaluable insights to Aricent," said Sudip Nandy, Chief Executive Officer at Aricent.