For Markus Haas, the emancipation as boss is also heartwarming for personal reasons.
(Photo: Photothek/Getty Images)
Hamburg Markus Haas stood out among Germany’s telecom bosses for a long time due to his reluctance. The big show wasn’t his thing. The CEO of Telefónica Deutschland (O2) also stayed away from social media as far as possible. Haas mostly fought in the shadows.
Compared to direct competitors, it appeared rather colorless. While Vodafone’s longtime head of Germany, Hannes Ametsreiter, staged his company as a pioneer of a “gigabit society”, Haas tried to whitewash Telefónica’s holey network. Next to the self-confident Telekom CEO Timotheus Höttges, a well-trained giant with a video blog and a bomber jacket, Haas looked really well-behaved and frumpy from the suit.
That is now changing. Haas turns out to be like a butterfly that gradually sheds its cocoon. He looks for the public, grins in selfie cameras and sometimes leaves the jacket off. Recently he even had himself photographed in a colorful T-shirt. “O2 can do,” it said on his chest.
Vodafone falls behind
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