Matthias Sauder has been Director Networks of o2 Telefónica in Germany since February 2020. He and his team are focussed on evolving o2 Telefónica’s core, access and transport network towards a customer-centric network, which is delivering connectivity to more than 45 million customers in Germany. Driving transformation has been top of mind. Main focus areas are currently coverage and quality enhancements, 5G development and rollout, cloud at scale and driving innovations. This includes driving the OpenRAN and CloudRAN ecosystem, introducing SDN in the transport network, shaping energy saving solutions and transforming the mobile core into a cloud-native core. AI/ML is top of mind particularly in the light of operational excellence and energy efficiency.

Before joining o2 Telefónica in Germany, Matthias Sauder has held different leadership roles at Vodafone in Germany and the Netherlands and built a track record in developing high performing teams, delivering key projects to the business and pushing innovations.

In all roles his top priority has been and will be to deliver the best possible customer experience. Last year, the o2 network has been recognized by Accenture as a ‘very good’ network for the fifth time in a row. Biggest achievement in 2024 has been the delivery of a Nokia packet core on AWS infrastructure serving more than 1 million customers.