The search for a new head of strategy is ongoing.
(Photo: IMAGO/Panama Pictures)
Hamburg At the headquarters of Deutsche Telekom in Bonn, an unusual personnel situation is making the rounds: Strategy chief Matthias Budde is moving to the US telecommunications giant AT&T in the same position. He will leave Telekom at the end of June.
A spokesman for the Bonn company confirmed the relevant information from corporate circles to the Handelsblatt. Until a successor is found, Andreas Schlegel, one of Budde’s employees, will be in charge of corporate strategy. AT&T initially left a request from the Handelsblatt unanswered.
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The fact that the US company is now recruiting its management staff from a former German state-owned company reflects the change that Telekom has undergone in recent years.
In 2022, the Dax group made a good 66 percent of its sales in the USA. The US subsidiary T-Mobile is considered to be one of the most innovative companies in the industry, which has been stealing customers from AT&T, which has long seemed rather immobile, year after year.
And apparently one dreams of the competitor of copying the modernization skills of the Germans. Culturally, AT&T and Telekom suffer equally from having ruled extensive monopolies for decades. This shaped culture and self-image, sometimes to this day. In recent years, however, the corporate management in Bonn has managed to break up this stagnation somewhat.
A key variable was the success of T-Mobile, which also had an impact on the mother in terms of customer relationships. AT&T also suffered a defeat that was all the more bitter against this background a good ten years ago: in 2011 the Texans failed with the takeover of T-Mobile by the antitrust authorities.
Budde, who came to Telekom in 2013 from the management consultancy Bain & Company, was one of the first new hires from the then CEO Timotheus Höttges, who was still designated at the time. In his almost ten years with the group, he was involved in the conception of Höttges’ current “Digital Telco” strategy as well as in the development of the group’s investments.
They played an important role under Höttges’ aegis, primarily because of the increasing relevance of T-Mobile. However, Budde’s wishes for operational responsibility are said not to have been met in Bonn.
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