The booming sectors, mobile communications and online business, will be more strongly represented on the Board of Management As a logical step following the reorganization of its Group structure in line with its four-pillar strategy focusing on mobile communications, online business, systems solutions and the fixed network, Deutsche Telekom has now restructured the Group's Board of Management. The Supervisory Board approved the Board of Management's proposal at its meeting on Wednesday. The new structure will become effective on May 1, 2001.
Board of Management chairman Dr. Ron Sommer said, "Now that we have largely implemented the new divisional organization, the next logical and necessary step is to restructure the Board of Management in order to ensure that the new Group organization can be managed in an optimal way."
The previous structure of Deutsche Telekom's Board of Management dates back to the reorganization that took place in the mid-nineties in the process of transforming the former public authority into a customer- and market-oriented company. Since then, the market and the company have undergone a fundamental change. Deutsche Telekom is responding to the new opportunities and challenges - especially the important issue of convergence - by organizing the Group into four pillars: T-Mobile , T-Online, T-Systems and T-Com . The pillars focus on the respective submarkets and, at the same time, have to work closely together to develop and market convergent products and services. This central task is one of the needs that will be met with the new management structure.
In order to have strong management at the operational level, responsibility for managing the four pillars will be concentrated on two Board of Management members. The first division, CS, is made up of T-Com and T-Systems and will be managed by Josef Brauner - formerly the member of the Board of Management responsible for Sales and Customer Care. This division will also coordinate the Group's marketing and sales activities. Kai-Uwe Ricke, formerly the chairman of the Board of Management of T-Mobile International, will head the MO division and thus take over responsibility for the pillars, T-Mobile and - following a transitional period - T-Online.
The tasks have been allocated between the two divisions, CS and MO, in accordance with the trend towards convergence: For example, the future-oriented mobile Internet is the major challenge that T-Online and T-Mobile have to face. T-Systems and T-Com are just as closely linked as these two pillars. For example, systems solutions are becoming increasingly important for the SME's that T-Com serves. The reorganization of the Group's Board of Management will not result in any changes in the management structure of the individual pillars.
The newly composed Production and Technology Division headed by Gerd Tenzer now consists of Networks, IT, Innovation, Purchasing and Environmental Protection. This division will be responsible, among other things, for the important task of ensuring the Group-wide and cross-pillar coordination of the network infrastructure along with its planning and further development.
Dr. Klinkhammer will continue to be the head of the Human Resources Division, including the top management. The responsibility for Legal Affairs will be transferred to the newly created Corporate Affairs Division.
The new Corporate Affairs Division includes Legal Affairs, Strategy, Auditing as well as Information and Process Organization and will be headed by the new member of the Board of Management, Dr. Max Hirschberger, who was formerly in charge of the Group Office.
Dr. Eick and Mr. Hedberg will continue to head the two Divisions, Finance and International. Dr. Hagen Hultzsch and Detlev Buchal will leave Deutsche Telekom's Board of Management on April 30, 2001. Both Board of Management members have been instrumental in shaping Deutsche Telekom's image. "I would like to thank Dr. Hultzsch and Mr. Buchal, also on behalf of the entire Board of Management, for their many years of dedicated service," Dr. Sommer said. "I am very pleased that they will continue to contribute to the company through their seats on supervisory boards."