Kerstin Günther (born 1967) is a German

business executive A business executive is a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization. Executives run companies or government agencies. They create plans to help their organizations ...

. Since 1991, she has held management positions in the Deutsche Telekom Group where in March 2012 she was appointed Senior Vice President Technology Europe, reporting to Claudia Nemat, board member Europe and Technology. From 2013 till 2017, she has been chairwoman of

Magyar Telekom Magyar Telekom Nyrt. (officially ''Magyar Telekom Távközlési Nyilvánosan Működő Részvénytársaság, Magyar Telekom Telecommunications Public Limited Company'' ) is the leading Hungarian telecommunications service provider company. I ...

, which is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. From 2016 to May 2020, Günther was a member of the Supervisory Board and the Audit Committee of the publicly listed, pan-European stock exchange Euronext N.V. Since June 2020 she is a member of the Supervisory Board and the Audit Committee of Deutsche Wohnen SE. Since April 2019, she is Chief Financial and Technology Officer of the health research center

Helmholtz Zentrum München Helmholtz Zentrum München Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt (GmbH), also known as Helmholtz Munich, is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. It was founded in 1960 and is a joint venture by the Fede ...

. She is responsible for the areas of finance, law, personnel, infrastructure, IT and digitalization.

Background and education

Born and raised in

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

, Günther studied electronics at the

Wrocław University of Technology Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

in Poland, graduating in 1991. She recalls that at the time only about 2% of students were female. She completed her education at the

Weatherhead School of Management The Weatherhead School of Management is a private business school of Case Western Reserve University located in Cleveland, Ohio. Weatherhead offers programs concentrated in sustainability, design innovation, healthcare, organizational behavior, gl ...

in Cleveland, Ohio, where she earned an MBA in finance in 1999.

Career

Günther joined what was then the Deutsche Bundespost in 1991, working in telecommunications. After it was privatized as Deutsche Telekom in 1995, she took on management assignments in Hungary (Senior Vice President Wholesale) and Slovakia (Senior Vice President Strategy and External Affairs) where she spent a total of 12 years. In 2003 she returned to Germany and became Co-Managing Director HR of the first Shared Service Center of Deutsche Telekom, the HR shared service center. In 2004 she became the first female Managing Director leading an Infrastructure Branch in Frankfurt/Main, where she managed all technical and operational infrastructure aspects for the company with a staff of some 3,000 engineers. She has also held management positions with the Technical Infrastructure Office of T-Home in Bonn. Since March 2012, Günther has been Senior Vice President Technology Europe with responsibility for technology and IT in 12 countries and for the Pan European Project. In November 2014 ''

Die Welt ''Die Welt'' ("The World") is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. ''Die Welt'' is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the ''Frankfurter All ...

'' article stated that she is "just below the board level responsible for 20,000 employees" in these countries. 2019, Günther is Chief Financial and Technology Officer of

and promotes the transformation and digitalization of one of Germany's leading health research centers. Günther has humorously described the European telecommunications industry as being "like the centre of a healthy sandwich under constant pressure from the outside, such as from the market or the dominant IT companies such as

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

". When Deutsche Telekom made a digital agreement with the Hungarian government in February 2014, she likened the alliance to being the "sandwich to protect the healthy salad". In addition to her native German, Günther is fluent in Polish and English and can converse in Russian and Hungarian.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gunther, Kerstin 1967 births Living people German business executives 21st-century German businesswomen 21st-century German businesspeople German electrical engineers Wrocław University of Technology alumni 20th-century German businesswomen 20th-century German businesspeople