Deutsche Telekom reducing the size of its Board of Management

Deutsche Telekom will reduce the size of its Board of Management. As Thomas Kremer, Board member DRC, will retire on March 31, 2020, the Board areas wData Privacy, Legal Affairs and Compliance (DRC) and Human Resources will be merged at the beginning of next year. Birgit Bohle will head the new Board area. This was decided today by the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom.

"Thomas Kremer and his team have done an outstanding job over the past ten years. The issue of data privacy has a completely different meaning in the company today compared to when the DRC division was established. The sensitive handling of data is firmly anchored in the minds of the Group's employees. The Cyber Defense and Security Operations Center is the most modern in Germany. Long-smoldering legal disputes such as the Toll Collect arbitration were settled. These successes now allow us to reorganize the Board area", says Ulrich Lehner, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom.

"Instead of a culture of looking the other way which led to the major data scandals in the early 2000s, there is now an active data privacy and compliance culture. As a result, Deutsche Telekom is also setting international standards. The opinions of Deutsche Telekom's data privacy experts are in demand in many committees", says Thomas Kremer, Board member DRC.

In future, Dr. Claudia Junker will head the Legal, Compliance and wData Privacy departments. She has been General Counsel of Deutsche Telekom's Group Legal department since November 2010. In her new role, she will report to Bohle and also become the Group's Executive Vice President. "Claudia Junker is a proven expert, as she has demonstrated during her many years of work in the DRC area. She will maintain and expand the high level that Deutsche Telekom has achieved in data privacy, legal affairs and compliance", said Telekom CEO Tim Höttges.

The reorganization of the Board of Management will take place on January 1, 2020. Thomas Kremer will manage the transition to the new structure until his departure at the end of March 2020.

The changes in the Board of Management will also have an impact on Deutsche Telekom's wData Privacy Advisory Board. New members will be Bohle and Höttges starting at the beginning of the year. Lothar Schröder, Chairman of the Advisory Board and Deputy Chairman of the Deutsche Telekom Supervisory Board: "Data privacy, compliance and data security remain important at Deutsche Telekom. This can also be seen from the fact that next to the Chief Human Resources Officer, also the CEO will be part of the Advisory Board. There is no clearer way to express the fact that data privacy and data security have top priority at Deutsche Telekom."