Thomas Ellerbeck (born in 1967) is a member of the management board of Vodafone Germany. He has been a member of the Vodafone Germany Executive Committee since 1st October 2006, responsible for communications, government relations, regulatory affairs, corporate responsibility and foundations. He also serves as chairman of Vodafone Foundation Germany.

Between January 2001 and his move to Vodafone in September 2006, he was Director of Media Relations and Deputy Director of Group Communications at Deutsche Lufthansa AG. Based in Frankfurt, he was responsible for Lufthansa’s German and international group and product communications, issues management and political communications.

Prior to taking up the position at Lufthansa, Thomas Ellerbeck spent almost ten years in various political departments at state and central government level. Between 1995 and the end of 2000 he was one of the Federal President’s inner circle of staff, initially as Deputy Spokesperson of the Federal President, Professor Roman Herzog, and then later as head of the President’s Office.

Between 1991 and 1995, he headed the press office of the Mecklenburg-West Pomerania state chancellery, and belonged to the immediate staff of the Minister Presidents Professor Alfred Gomolka and Dr. Berndt Seite during the post-reunification rebuilding phase. From 1992 to 1994 he held the position of Deputy Government Spokesman in Minister-President Seite’s cabinet.

He started out his working career as a journalist, moving on to work as editor and then aide to Claire Marienfeld, a member of the German parliament in Bonn, which was the seat of the German government at that time.

Thomas Ellerbeck is a member of various bodies interfacing with the political, industrial and media sectors. He is spokesman and member of the Council of The Nobel Laureate Meetings at Lindau and has been a member of the WDR Broadcasting Council since 2009. Ellerbeck is involved in international business and political dialogue as a member of the committee of the Near and Middle East Association and, at transatlantic level, as a member of Atlantic Bridge.