Britain’s Vodafone is ringing up the changes. On May 27, the world’s largest mobile-phone operator by revenues announced that its Indian-born chief executive, Arun Sarin, will retire in July after five years at the helm. His deputy and the former head of Vodafone’s European business, Vittorio Colao, will succeed him.

Sarin leaves Vodafone in better shape than when he joined it. His surprise resignation overshadowed the company’s return to full-year profitability also announced on May 27, with Vodafone posting net profits of $13.2 billion for the year ending Mar. 31, compared with a loss of more than $10 billion the previous year due to writedowns. Sales rose 14 percent, to $70 billion. And during Sarin’s tenure, Vodafone’s global customer base has more than doubled, from 120 million to 260 million today.

For Sarin, the strong results are vindication of the strategy he pioneered two years ago. With growth in Europe slowing to a stutter — Vodafone’s organic growth from existing businesses last year was just 4.2 percent — Sarin sought acquisitions in emerging markets, expanding into Romania, the Czech Republic, Turkey, and most recently India.

A Turnaround in Two Years

At the same time, he slashed more than $1 billion in costs and increased the amount of revenues the company gets from so-called data services, which include everything from music downloads to business e-mail and laptop connectivity devices. “I feel that I have accomplished what I set out to achieve,” Sarin, 53, said in a statement.

Just two years ago, few figured Sarin would make it this far. The company’s board was driven apart by factional infighting, Vodafone’s share price was falling, and institutional investors were furious that Sarin refused to part with the company’s 50 percent stake [along with Verizon Communications] in U.S.-based Verizon Wireless. At the company’s 2006 annual meeting, an estimated 10…