Thomas Geitner

Thomas Geitner (born 14 March 1955 in Heidenheim, Germany) is a German businessman.

He joined the board of BBC Worldwide, the BBC’s main commercial subsidiary, as a non-executive director in April 2007, where he will be particularly advising on new media developments, investments and international growth as BBC Worldwide gears up for some major digital business launches.

Previously, he was the CEO, New Businesses & Innovation of Vodafone since April 2006, and also a Board director since May 2000. As a consequence of the restructuring of the Vodafone organisation, he left the post and company end of 2006.

Geitner joined Vodafone in 2000 as an Executive Director, with responsibility for establishing and managing Global Products and Services, he was responsible for establishing Vodafone as a global brand, for the creation and successful launch of Vodafone live! in 2002 and the establishment of a global supply chain organisation.

In July 2003, Geitner was appointed Vodafone’s Chief Technology Officer. In this capacity he initiated and led the One Vodafone programme, established a set of shared service organizations and created the Group’s leadership position on 3G across Europe.

He was a director of several of the Group's overseas subsidiaries including Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Arcor AG & Co.KG, a member of the Supervisory Board of Vodafone D2 GmbH and a member of the Management Boards of Vodafone Holding GmbH and Vodafone Deutschland GmbH. He is also a member of the Supervisory Board of Singulus Technologies AG.

Prior to Vodafone, Thomas was leading a number of engineering businesses and later was responsible for telecommunications at RWE Group and was a member of the Management Board. He also held the position of CEO of Otelo Communications GmbH and E-Plus, two German telecommunications companies.