Executive Summary

Professional Experience

Metro AG

Hospitality Digital GmbH

September 2022 - present

Group CIO | Reporting to CEO

Hospitality Digital, 100% subsidiary of Metro AG, is the world's largest provider of digital solutions for the hotel, restaurant and catering (HoReCa) industry

Eijsink GmbH, purchased recently, is the leading provider of a Point-Of-Sales (POS) platform, specialized for gastronomy, in the Benelux countries. The POS platform is currently becoming the basis of the future product portfolio of Hospitality Digital

• Permanent | Düsseldorf
• Budget responsibility: 25m €
• Personnel responsibility: 200 (internal & external)
• Direct reports: 5
• Context: Post Merger with Eijsink GmbH
• Core Competencies: IT / Organizational Management, Cloud / Virtualization, Strategy / Governance

Responsibility

• Member of the extended Executive Committee
• Technical implementation of the merger with Eijsink GmbH, primarily in the backend
• Integration der Point-Of-Sale (POS) Software in the existing systems
• Member of the Technical Architecture Board of Metro AG (until March)
• B2B SaaS product development (customer facing DISH platform for purchase and administration of products (E-commerce), Business Support Systems (CRM, ERP, Finances, Payment and Invoicing, GDPR relevant systems and products), as well as all Metro facing Systems (Data Warehouse, HR, Payroll via SAP, travel cost management)
• Operational IT-Security

Results

• Successfully integrated and launched POS software in both France and Germany
• Effectively defended against two global cyberattacks targeting Metro
• Developed strategic plans for both companies post-merger, with a strong emphasis on technical integration
• Initiated a strategic product roadmap to guide investment decisions
• Created the target architecture for the joined backend systems of both companies
• Restructured and harmonized the customer life cycle, transitioning from individual, fragmented solutions to a unified and jointly owned process
• Achieved successful ISO 27001 recertification for the company

Hospitality Digital GmbH

March 2022 - August 2022

CTO | Reporting to CEO

• Permanent | Düsseldorf
• Budget responsibility: 20m €
• Personnel responsibility: 150 (internal & external)
• Direct reports: 3
• Context: Operational Management
• Core Competencies: IT / Organizational Management, Nearshoring, Process Optimization

Responsibility

• Assume leadership of the IT organization, taking over from the CEO who had served as interim CTO for 1.5 years
• Strategically manage the IT platform, aligning it with business objectives and driving innovation
• Hold a key position as a member of the Technical Architecture Board of Metro, contributing to decision-making processes and shaping the technological landscape
• Oversee the entire SaaS Product Development, leading roughly 17 teams. Manage Business Support Systems, IT-Security, and cloud infrastructure to ensure efficient operations and high-quality outputs
• Ensure continuous compliance with ISO27001 standards, maintaining a robust information security management system and uphold best practices

Results

• Successfully stabilized the DISH platform, achieving a 4x increase in performance
• Implemented cost-saving measures for the DISH Order product, resulting in a reduction of 66%
• Introduced load tests and an integration test platform, ensuring robustness and reliability in the system
• Assumed internal responsibility for software development from external developers, strategically hiring and onboarding internal senior developers to secure critical know-how in-house
• Recruited an experienced Enterprise Architect to establish the target enterprise architecture, setting the foundation for a scalable and efficient technology framework
• Implemented targeted measures led by the newly hired senior developers, resulting in improved quality across individual products
• Optimized the Scrum process, driving efficiency and effectiveness by making necessary personnel changes and streamlining workflows

Independent Consultant

Client: WCG Gmbh

September 2021 - Feb 2022

Consultant

WCG GmbH is a mid-sized consulting company specializing in business excellence, strategy- and brand development

• Consulting | Siegen
• Context: Startup
• Core Competencies: IT / organizational management, software and app development, risk Management

Responsibility and Results

• Consulting of WCG for the technical side of creating a startup, intended for WCG customers
• Development of a roadmap, with a strong focus on product management, based on my experience and some pre-existing ideas
• Setup of a personnel and growth plan for the startup, all the way to the intended exit
• Supporting the owner and the team in meetings with potential investors, by presenting the technical implementation of the project

StepStone Group

StepStone GmbH

December 2019 - August 2021

Development Director - Continental Europe & UK | Reporting to Group CTO

The Stepstone Group is one of the world's leading job platforms, specializing in digital recruiting

• Permanent | Düsseldorf
• Budget responsibility: 12m €
• Personnel responsibility: 65
• Direct reports: 3
• Context: Post Merger / Carve Out / Joint Venture
• Core Competencies: IT / Organizational Management, IT Infrastructure, Software / Hardware Development

Responsibility

• Formation of a new, internal IT organization, merging StepStone Continental Europe and TotalJobs Group
• Integration of two technology landscapes into a single IT platform, for IT, Product Management and Marketing
• Cloud Program Management for StepStone Group
• Efficient cooperation of over 70 product teams, by providing AWS Cloud infrastructure
• Planning and execution of the migration from a Belgian data center into the cloud

Results

• Operations was fully integrated after 3 months
• Introduced Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)
• Successfully deployed a platform for approximately 1000 IT, product management and marketing employees
• 70 product development teams were reorganized and able cooperate successfully across both organizations
• Provided new AWS cloud infrastructure, with cost savings of 50 % over 3 years
• Standardized processes, such as ticket management, handling about 3000 tickets per month
• Planning and managing the migration from a Belgian data center to the cloud
• Stabilizing employee turnover at 3 % (20 % below average)

Experience Abroad

• Warsaw, Poland, every second week, for one week
• Brussels, Belgium, occasionally
• United Kingdom, occasionally

StepStone Continental Europe GmbH

June 2017 - December 2019

Development Director - Continental Europe | Reporting to Group CTO

• Permanent | Düsseldorf
• Budget responsibility: 14m €
• Personnel responsibility: 180
• Direct reports: 3
• Context: Operational Management
• Core Competencies: Software / Hardware Development, ECommerce, Process Optimization

Responsibility

• Assuming responsibility for the core organization from the Group CTO, who wanted to focus more on the group
• Product development with 26 teams
• Operations in hybrid cloud and data center environment
• Finalizing the migration into the cloud, turning a shift & lift platform into a cloud native platform
• Creation and implementation of a new, cloud specific security concept

Results

• Increased the number of releases by 400%, through creation of a One-Click-Deployment process
• Enabled several thousand service releases per year, through complete transfer of ownership to individual development teams
• Expanded the E-commerce platform with self-service features, which increased E-commerce revenue from 1 to 10 million Euro
• Created an automated test framework for CI/CD, with ca. 800 test case, which could be run within 45 minutes
• Implemented GDPR in the company
• Successful implementation of a cloud-specific security concept, with partially automated, continuous checks
• Reduced errors in production by 99,95%, through introduction of error reduction sprints
• Resolved significant issues between Product Management and IT, through increasing common understanding of requirements

Experience Abroad

• Warsaw, Poland, every second week, for one week
• Brussels, Belgium, occasionally
• United Kingdom, occasionally

StepStone Continental Europe GmbH

August 2015 - May 2017

Development Director - Group Components | Reporting to Group CTO

• Permanent | Düsseldorf
• Budget responsibility: 8m €
• Personnel responsibility: 120
• Direct reports: 2
• Context: Operational Management, Reorganization
• Core Competencies: IT / Organizational Management, Software / Hardware Development, Process Optimization

Responsibility and Results

• Successful setup of IT for a newly created business unit, with 17-20 international development teams
• Implemented a service-oriented architecture to modularize the existing, monolithic, legacy software
• Provided those services for all companies within StepStone Group
• Introduced and created a data warehouse for StepStone Group
• Set up agile software development, based on Scrum and Kanban
• Developed native iOS and Android apps in 14 variations for different countries and companies
• Modernized a feed-platform (roughly 1500 feeds for 70% of the content), for automated publishing of ads

Experience Abroad

• Warsaw, Poland, every second week, for one week
• Brussels, Belgium, occasionally

Idenpendent Consultant

Client: BKM Stahl und Anlagenbau GmbH

August 2014 - July 2015

Consultant

BKM is a mid-sized company creating custom-made products and providing services for the oil and gas industry

• Consulting | Berkhöpen
• Context: Growth, Networking
• Core Competencies: Business Development, Online Sales / EBusiness, Indirect Sales

Responsibility and Results

• Improved the digital representation of the company
• Optimized the presentation of products
• Created a service catalog
• Utilization of my international network to help increase the customer base
• Internationalization of offered services and products

New Yorker GmbH

November 2012 - July 2014

Head of Software Development | Reporting to CIO

NewYorker is one of the largest, international fashion labels and retailers

• Permanent | Braunschweig
• Budget responsibility: 2m €
• Personnel responsibility: 17
• Direct reports: 17
• Context: Operational Management
• Core Competencies: IT / Organizational Management, Software / Hardware Development, Project Management

Responsibility and results

• International software development for 1000 stores in 40 countries
• Restructured software development via clearly defined processes and requirements
• Developed a previously non-existent software development strategy for business intelligence, ERP and Point-Of-Sale
• Established a comprehensive requirements management system for all IT departments
• Integrated software development into the company's existing processes and structures, for example ITIL, Cobit and Prince2
• Continued a project to exchange a self-made ERP system against Microsoft Dynamics AX, with ca. 40 external developers
• Set up quality assurance for software and data warehouse

Deutsche Telekom AG

Deutsche Telekom, Products & Innovation (formerly T-Online)

April 2010 - October 2012

Team Lead Software Development Portal Solutions | Reporting to Head of Portal Services

Products & Innovation, formerly known as T-Online, is the ISP of Deutsche Telekom AG, one of the world's largest telecommunication companies

• Permanent | Darmstadt
• Budget responsibility: 10m €
• Personnel responsibility: 50
• Direct reports: 2
• Context: Operational Management
• Core Competencies: Software / Hardware Development, Cloud / Virtualization, Project Management

Responsibility

• Development and optimization of one of the largest, highly available, general interest portals in Europe, with up to 30 individual sub-portals, 26 million customers and 4.5 billion page views per month

Results

• Raised availability from 90% to 99.9%
• Improved customer satisfaction by 48%
• Reduced required infrastructure by 33% through the utilization of highly-performant delivery servers (Varnish)
• Developed a configurative method to transfer 80% of software development to non-developers
• Realized large projects, with initially up to 8000 person days, by introduction of Scrum at T-Online
• Successfully built an early streaming platform (VideoLoad) and Erotic Lounge, with content that required special protection
• Created a E-Commerce portal for software products (SoftwareLoad)
• Created an integrated requirements management system, based on Confluence and Jira

Deutsche Telekom, Products & Innovation (formerly T-Online)

April 2005 - August 2011

Head of W3C Activities (concurrent activity) | Reporting to Head of Portal Services

• Permanent | Darmstadt
• Context: Standardization
• Core Competencies: Prototyping, Research and Development (R&D), QM Strategy / Business Excellence

Responsibility and Results

• Representing Deutsche Telekom AG in the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for the standardization of web technologies, mobile and desktop convergence and human-machine interaction
• Participation in panel discussions on international conferences, as representative of one of Europe's largest ISPs (T-Online)
• Contribution in working groups for the development of web standards, such as XForms, POWDER, HTML 5 and CSS
• Introduction of new technologies and methods, at T-Online, for monetization purposes

T-Online

March 2003 - April 2010

Project Manager Content Management | Reporting to Head of Media Platform Integration

• Permanent | Darmstadt
• Budget responsibility: 7m €
• Personnel responsibility: 6
• Context: Operational Management
• Core Competencies: IT / Organizational Management, Project Management, Software / Hardware Development

Responsibility and Results

• Successful analysis of the existing CMS-system, as content providing system, which had initially been questioned as basis for all T-Online Portals. It was then used for the next 10 years
• Setup of quality assurance, with automated error detection
• Setup of a requirement's management systems and a change request board, for prioritization of requirements of ca. 25 portals
• Standardization of processes and in development and testing

Mozquito AG

May 2000 - June 2002

Director of Product Integrations | Reporting to CEO

Mozquito AG was a startup, specializing in Web applications, that provided smart online forms in a client/server configuration

• Permanent | Munich
• Budget responsibility: 1m €
• Personnel responsibility: 8
• Direct reports: 8
• Context: Off-the-shelf Software Development
• Core Competencies: Software / Hardware Development, IT / Organizational Management, Project Management

Responsibility

• Responsibility for the entire product creation process, from ideation, over software development, to the final, off-the-shelf package

PolyPort GmbH

December 1997 - April 2000

Head of Internet Department | Reporting to Owner

PolyPort GmbH was a small company providing network, general IT and Web services

• Permanent | Munich
• Personnel responsibility: 1
• Direct reports: 1
• Context: Strategic positioning, IT / Organizational Management
• Core Competencies: IT / Organizational Management, Software / Hardware Development, E-Commerce

Responsibility

• Creation of the Internet Department, to conceptualize and implement Websites for customers