The Vodafone Institute team

Director Public Affairs, Vodafone Deutschland and Managing Director, Vodafone Institute

As Director Public Affairs, Marc Konarski is responsible for the political representation of interests at federal level and the Social Responsibility of Vodafone Germany. Since 2022, he has been Managing Director of the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications and Chairman of the Management Board of the Vodafone Foundation Germany.

Marc Konarski began his professional career in 2010 at the digital association Bitkom, where he most recently headed the telecommunications policy department. In 2014, he moved to Düsseldorf as Senior Counsel in the Regulatory Strategy department of Vodafone Germany. In 2017, he took over as head of the capital city office in Berlin.

Marc Konarski studied law at the Free University of Berlin and completed his legal clerkship at the Court of Appeal in Berlin.

Group Head of Finance Operations & Margin Assurance, Vodafone Group. Chief Financial Officer of the Vodafone Institute and Chief Financial Officer Vodafone Foundation Germany

Thomas Holtmanns is “Group Head of Finance Operations & Margin Assurance”. Based in Düsseldorf and as Chief Financial Officer of Vodafone Group Services GmbH he is accountable for the operational delivery and digital transformation of Finance Operations & Margin Assurance across all local markets, Group Commercial and all legal entities of Vodafone Group. Since 2005 he is CFO of the Vodafone Foundation Germany and since January 2013 CFO of the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications. Besides he serves in various governance roles for other subsidiaries and institutions.

Since 1992 he had various roles at Mannesmann Group and its international shareholdings. Following the merger of Mannesmann and Vodafone he headed up the management of internal audit across Vodafone Group and its international subsidiaries. Between 2004 and 2011 he was Director Finance and Accounting at Vodafone Germany. In 2011 he became accountable for Finance Operations across all Central European Vodafone shareholdings and Global Process Owner for Revenue & Margin Assurance. He took office in his current role in November 2017.

Thomas Holtmanns studied Business Management at the universities of Giessen and Cologne.

Christina Arens leads the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communication. She is responsible for program management and operations of the Institute.

Together with the team she works on strengthening the position of the institute as thought leader among politic, science, civil society, and media.

Since 2012 she has been part of the Vodafone Company. Her first position was in Direct Marketing, which she started to lead in 2015. Till her switch to the Vodafone Institute, she was responsible for the Consumer Channel Management and Direct Sales.

Christina Arens studied European Business Studies in Dresden and worked for many years in Full Service Agency.

Julia Ebert is responsible for the conception and implementation of european cooperation projects and studies with partners from politics, business, science and civil society. She also heads the F-LANE Social Startup Accelerator and supports the strategic development of the Institute.

Before joining the Vodafone Institute, Julia Ebert was a Senior Consultant at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) from 2017 to 2020. Her focus was on the conception and implementation of participation and Think Tank formats to promote social participation with partners from industry and the public sector. Previously, she worked as a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in the area of Public Management Consulting with a focus on digital transformation and Open Government.

Julia Ebert studied communication science in Erfurt and Berlin.

Olena Snidalova is responsible at the Vodafone Institute for the national and international studies and publications. With the partners from the economy, science, and civil society she also manages the communication of the Vodafone Institute.

Olena has been at Vodafone since 2014. Her last station was Senior Brand Manager, previously in Customer Base Marketing and Social Media Marketing in Otelo. Before her Vodafone path Olena worked as art expert for the contemporary and modern art at on of the prestige auction houses in Düsseldorf.

Olena Snidalova studied European Studies in Wuppertal, Art History in Bochum, and previously Arabic Studies in Kyiv.

Stephan Gesing is the Programme Coordinator at the Vodafone Institute. He provides operational and administrative support to all programmes of the Institute.

Before joining the Institute, he worked at the Vodafone Foundation Germany for nine years, assisting at the implementation of several projects and programmes of the Foundation and facilitating the coordination of the Vodafone Chancen (Vodafone Grant) scholarship programme. Before that Stephan Gesing worked in sales and distribution for Vodafone and Thyssen Krupp (Krupp Hoesch Stahlexport).