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Article: Recovering From The Tech Bubble.(Kai-Uwe Ricke)
- Article from:
- Newsweek International
- Article date:
- December 30, 2002
- Author:
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Among the class of new CEOs at struggling European technology giants, none will be more intriguing to watch in 2003 than Deutsche Telekom's Kai-Uwe Ricke. He shares almost nothing with his flashy and argumentative predecessor from Sony, Ron Sommer, who had always remained something of an outsider in the notoriously political company. The son of a former Telekom chief, Ricke is a born insider.
He inherits huge problems, including a huge debt load from years of splurging, a slow-growth business and a hierarchical company culture dating from when Telekom was an arm of the post office, a monolith with more staff than the German Army. For all Sommer's talk about the ...