He was born on September 5, 1969, in Gießen. After earning a diploma in physics in 1995, he received his Ph.D. in physics in 1997 and earned an MBA in 2000 from INSEAD in Fontainebleau. He began his professional career as a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, where he worked from 1998 to 2003. He then held various leadership positions at Deutsche Telekom AG from 2003 to 2006. This was followed by executive board roles at Vodafone in Romania and the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2011, as well as at TelstraGroup Ltd. in Melbourne from 2012 to 2016. From 2016 to 2021, he served on the Executive Board of E.ON SE before acting as CEO of CECONOMY AG and the MediaMarktSaturn Group from 2021 to 2025. Since May 2025, he has been a member of the CDU and assumed office as Federal Minister for Digital Affairs and Government Modernization on May 6, 2025.