Claudia Nemat (56), Member of the Board of Management responsible for Technology and Innovation, informed the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom AG at an early stage that she would not be renewing her contract after 14 years on the Board of Management.
The contract would have expired next year. In the future, she would like to use her experience as a board member, supervisory board member and former senior partner in various functions to build up a portfolio of entrepreneurial activities – including mandates on international boards of directors or supervisory boards.
She will be succeeded by Dr. Abdurazak (Abdu) Mudesir (43) on October 1, 2025. He currently serves as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) on Claudia Nemat’s Executive Board. In addition, he is also Telekom’s Chief Technology Officer in Germany.
Claudia Nemat, Member of the Board of Management responsible for Technology and Innovation, and Dr. Abdurazak Mudesir currently Chief Technology Officer (CTO) on Claudia Nemat’s Executive Board and Chief Technology Officer in Germany.
Dr. Frank Appel, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom: “The Supervisory Board has approved the request for an early termination of the contract. We respect this decision, even if we regret it. Claudia Nemat has played a decisive role in shaping Deutsche Telekom’s culture and performance in recent years – from the digitalization of networks to the success story of 5G, the development of resilient supply chains in times of polycrises, global product innovations and our recently developed AI strategy.
The Supervisory Board would like to thank Claudia Nemat for her outstanding work over the past 14 years. We are pleased that we have been able to recruit Abdu Mudesir as an excellent internal candidate for this important task. He will continue to drive the digitalization, scaling and automation of Deutsche Telekom. His previous work ensures a smooth transition.”
Timotheus Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom: “I have worked closely with Claudia over the past 14 years. I would like to thank her very much for this. With her strategic perspective and leadership, she has played a key role in shaping Deutsche Telekom‘s transformation into one of the most successful telecommunications companies in the world. She brought her successor Abdu Mudesir into the company at an early stage and assigned him responsible tasks so that he can take over his new post well prepared. In the future, he will be responsible for a technology and product area that is ideally positioned for the future. With Abdu, a young and at the same time experienced technical expert is joining the board. In his previous role, he played a key role in the continuous expansion of a high-performance and future-proof network architecture – with over 10.5 million fiber-optic connections and over 98 percent 5G coverage in Germany today. Innovation is part of his DNA. Abdu has been instrumental in advancing key future technologies such as Open RAN, cloud infrastructure and AI-based network control. The use of AI has significantly increased power quality, energy efficiency and service automation – a milestone towards an autonomous grid. I am looking forward to working with him. I like the hands-on way in which he approaches things.”
Claudia Nemat, said, “I am very proud of what we have achieved together. I would like to thank the Supervisory Board, the Board of Management and, above all, my great team. Now is the right time for me to consistently combine my experience, my passion for people and technology, my creative drive and my network and to pursue my own entrepreneurial activities. I will invest in Germany as a technology and AI location and further develop future models, in combination with international board mandates.”
Dr. Abdu Mudesir, commented, “I would like to thank everyone involved for the trust they have placed in me – especially Claudia, with whom I have been working closely for years. I have great respect for everything Claudia has done and moved for Deutsche Telekom. I am very much looking forward to the new task and to shaping the next technology phase together with the technology and innovation team. Like no other company, Deutsche Telekom stands for innovation, social responsibility and international competitiveness. I am proud to be able to participate in this.”
Claudia Nemat has been a member of the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom since 2011. Until the end of 2016, she headed the European business. Since January 2017, she has been responsible for the Technology and Innovation department, which includes responsibility for networks, IT, products and cyber security.
Before joining Deutsche Telekom, she worked for 17 years at the management consultancy McKinsey. There, she was Head of the Global Technology Sector and took on a number of interim management roles with global clients, including interim CEO roles.
Her focus areas include digital transformation, the impact of new technologies such as artificial intelligence on business models, our work and our lives, technology and product innovation, and IT transformation, security and crisis management.
She has worked in numerous European countries and the United States. She was a member of the Supervisory Board of Lanxess from 2013 to 2016. From 2016 to 2025, she was a member of the Board of Directors of Airbus and the Supervisory Board of Airbus Defense. In addition, she has been a member of the Board of Directors of ABB Ltd since March 2025.
Claudia Nemat studied physics at the University of Cologne and taught there at the Institute of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. In 2021, she was awarded the Heinrich Hertz Visiting Professorship of KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). She is a member of the University Council of the University of Cologne and a member of the German Council on Foreign Relations.
Dr. Abdu Mudesir has a career spanning more than 15 years in technology. Since 2018, he has held various management roles within Deutsche Telekom, most recently in a dual role as Managing Director Technology of Telekom Deutschland GmbH and Group CTO of Deutsche Telekom AG. He helped shape the company’s technological course.
These include the further development of the mobile network and the expansion of the fiber-optic network, as well as international innovations in the areas of Open RAN, cloud infrastructure and AI in network operations. He studied computer science and electrical engineering at the International University Bremen, where he received his doctorate in 2010. He also completed an Executive MBA program at Stanford University in California. His professional career began in 2010 at the management consultancy Altran Technologies. In 2012, he moved to the technology group Huawei.
