Vodafone is the largest provider of mobile telecommunications services in the world, with some 26 operational networks. The work of Vodafone Group R&D covers all aspects of the company's business. The focus is applied research positioned between basic research and development of pilot products and services. In scope it ranges from fundamental radio technology, through service enablers to business modelling. The work provides technical leadership for Group's long-term business strategy and leadership for the company's work in international technical standards.

Since 1996 Dr. Michael Walker has been a professor in the University of London, holding the part-time Vodafone Chair in Telecommunications at Royal Holloway. He is also a visiting Professor in the University of Surrey. Michael is vice-chairman and member of the Executive Committee of the Mobile VCE, a group of companies and UK universities researching future mobile communications. He acted as an advisor on the Foresight Programme, and consequently served on the EMS steering committee. Michael is a member of the IEE IT Sector Panel, and earlier this year he was elected to the ERTICO supervisory board. Until recently he was a member of the academic board of the University of Karlsruhe.

He has held a number of positions with standards bodies, including chairman of 3GPP SA3, the body responsible for the security aspects of the standard for third generation mobile systems, and chairman of the OHG, an international group of mobile telecommunications operators with the mandate to harmonise all third generation mobile standards.

Before joining Vodafone, Michael was Head of Mathematics at Racal Research, where his responsibilities included the design of error correcting coding schemes and cryptographic algorithms for a variety of communications systems. Prior to that he was an academic at the University of Tuebingen in Germany.