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Company veteran to work closely with chief financial and strategy officer Rachel Empey.
Telefonica Germany on Sunday named chief operating officer Markus Haas as its new CEO, who will succeed Thorsten Dirks on 1 January 2017.
Haas has held various management positions at Telefonica since joining the company in 1998. He has been a member of Telefonica Germany’s board since 2012.
Haas will work closely with chief financial and strategy officer Rachel Empey. Her remit has been expanded to include transformation and integration, business intelligence, innovation, and Telefonica Next – the company’s data analytics division.
"Markus Haas and Rachel Empey have proved to be a very strong leadership team in the past years and will drive the further transformation of the business," said Eva Castillo Sanz, chairwoman of Telefonica Germany, in a statement.
Telefonica Germany said Haas and Empey together led the company through a successful IPO, and the merger and integration with KPN’s E-Plus.
It was the E-Plus deal that brought Telefonica Germany’s outgoing CEO, Thorsten Dirks, to the company. He took on the role in October 2014, having been CEO of E-Plus up until then.
Dirks’ contract was not due to expire until the end of September next year, but in November, Telefonica announced that his departure had been brought forward.
Dirks will step down as CEO on 1 January, and will serve in an advisory role until the end of March.
