Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)

In-house consulting provider and driver of transformation within the group, multi-stakeholder environment and C-level.

Realignment and stabilization of a cross-functional transformation and scaling program within the group. Sharpening the target picture, priorities, and set of measures, as well as building reliable governance, planning, and steering structures. Structuring roles, responsibilities, and strategic initiatives while including AI and IT automation ideas.

• Designed program realignment and project portfolio management

• Developed strategy model and target picture for IT projects

• Structured portfolio, roadmap, and priorities

• Established governance and regular meetings

• Worked out operating model for flagship projects

• Assessed AI and automation ideas

• Clarified roles and responsibilities

• Implemented change measures

• Developed, moderated, and evaluated workshops

• Transformed 17 initiatives into a steering model

• Increased transparency and decision-making ability

• Strengthened commitment in steering

• Sharpened the operating model structurally

• Integrated three top-5 institutes

• Involved over 80% of stakeholders

• Governance

• Portfolio steering (PPM)

• Change management

• Artificial intelligence

• Workflow automation

• AI use case assessment

• Confluence

• Jira

• Stakeholder management

• WiNOWiG enhancements (digitalization & organization)
• Project management for the WiNOWiG project (regulatory offenses)
• Process optimization and coordination

Sub-project lead in an agile IT environment

Leading a software development team (10 employees)

• Leading a software development team with 10 employees
• Budget responsibility approx. 3 million euros per year
• Conducting employee and job interviews
• Responsibility for resource planning (budget and employees)
• Digitalization of a web interface
• Regular reporting to customers and stakeholders (C-level)
• Product management: developing and implementing product strategies; defining requirements to guide product development
• Structuring product development & continuous testing efficiently to quickly incorporate feedback & compliance points
• Close collaboration with stakeholders & various teams to understand requirements, set priorities, ensure rollout, and increase user-friendliness
• Project experience in an energy industry company, including the functioning of energy markets, the basics of energy generation and distribution, as well as current challenges and developments in the industry
• Project experience in the railway sector - including the structure and operation of railway systems.
• Project experience within the 16.7 Hz traction power sector incl. knowledge of regulatory processes
• Formulating the sub-project charter and the project profile according to the project standard together with the project management
• Controlling service delivery according to the project charter
• Planning and controlling human resources including budget planning for the sub-project
• Ensuring the work capacity of the sub-project participants, e.g. by requesting access rights and documents for the sub-project team
• Planning and control for the respective sub-project (time, scope, budget) including the creation of necessary documents
• Alignment with the business department and Product Owners to plan the sub-project scope and the corresponding implications
• Executing milestone planning according to the agreed process model
• Effort estimation and support of sub-project controlling as well as overall project controlling in forecasting and planning
• Reporting sub-project status (according to status slide template) including progress (according to progress measurement)
• Analyzing, preparing, and addressing action and decision requirements
• Escalating sub-project issues to the project management
• Creating and managing Change Requests (CR)
• Quality assessment of completed task packages from a project management perspective (time, scope, and budget)
• Implementation management of the overarching guidelines and requirements in the sub-project, supported by cross-functional roles on the functional and technical side.
• Identifying, managing, documenting, and communicating opportunities, risks, and dependencies within and across sub-projects
• Supporting project management in creating the overall project plan and overall status reports
• Preparing and managing commissioning including the required documents and protection needs assessment

Scrum Master in an agile IT environment supporting a software development team in the full-stack area (7 people)

• Close collaboration with stakeholders & various teams to understand requirements, set priorities, ensure rollout, and increase user-friendliness
• Implementation of the selected Scrum method, including the required events, meetings, artifacts (product backlog, sprint backlog, burndown charts), metrics, as well as conducting required training in an agile IT environment
• Preparation of Scrum events such as Daily, retrospectives, Review, Sprint planning, estimation, and refinement (agile way of working)
• Moderation of retrospectives and elimination of obstacles to move the team and product forward
• Preparation of action items and retros via whiteboard and Figma
• Application and improvement of agile methods such as Kanban, Scrum, SAFe, or Scrum of Scrums
• Tracking the "Definition of Done" and "Definition of Ready" for all work results of the development team
• Advising on information flow and communication improvements between Product Owner and project team
• Experience with automation, validation such as mandatory field checks, notification functions, creation of filters, boards, and reports via JQL, and setting up cycle time
• Use of Jira & Confluence
• Setting up a progress measurement for project management to transparently map planned vs. actual team capacities and actual efforts for user stories
• Measuring team progress: creating team KPIs: "velocity", "burn-down chart", "throughput", "costs", "quality", "scope"
• Evaluation of agile metrics, process management, and process modeling methods (BPMN, EPC, UML)
• Communication and moderation know-how
• Methodological competence proven in conflict discussions

• Identified operational improvement opportunities together with production, engineering and management teams.
• Prioritized use cases according to measurable operational value rather than technology availability.
• Developed solutions around production performance, OEE, quality, traceability, reporting and process transparency.
• Translated operational requirements into required machine data, interfaces, information models and application requirements.
• Defined target architectures and integration approaches for heterogeneous brownfield production environments.
• Moved prioritized use cases from workshop and concept stages into concrete implementation projects.
• Coordinated manufacturing, OT, IT and technology stakeholders during implementation.
• Established reusable approaches to scale successful solutions beyond individual machines or pilot areas.

• Modernization of a large-scale Java enterprise application*

The project is modernizing a complex enterprise application that has grown over many years. The existing Spring-based legacy system runs on Java 8, OSGi, and Eclipse RCP and is being gradually migrated to a modern, maintainable architecture with Java 25 and Quarkus.

Marcus works on analysis, architecture, refactoring, and implementation. One focus is on untangling historically grown structures and dependencies and on building a clean, sustainable Java and Quarkus technology stack.

Tools & technologies: Java 8, Java 25, Quarkus, Hibernate ORM with Panache, EclipseLink, OSGi, Eclipse RCP, Maven, JUnit, Mockito, REST, JSON, Git, Eclipse IDE, IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, Jira, Confluence

• LLM-based features for automated CO₂e data extraction from unstructured documents (70% reduction)

• Agentic AI pipeline for automated Scope 3 emissions calculation with 150,000+ validated data records

• Smart API workflows for real-time carbon footprint calculations in ERP and ESG systems

• ML algorithms to predict emission hotspots and optimize product design

• Automated data validation pipelines with NLP for quality assurance of CO₂e datasets

• Led a 15-person cross-functional team to develop 10+ AI features

• Strategic product planning and AI roadmap with 35% shorter time to market

• Stakeholder management with DAX companies (40% higher satisfaction, 95% retention)

• On-time project delivery with 95% budget adherence through data-driven backlog management

• Agile methods (Scrum, Kanban) with continuous AI/ML integration (25% team velocity increase)

• Product-market fit for AI features through A/B testing and analytics (60% higher adoption rate)

Workflow-automation SaaS for operations teams (Berlin, 120 people); full-time freelance engagement reporting to the CEO: an initial 12-month interim mandate, extended twice through the AI build-out; owned product for one squad and coached the other product managers on process.

• Led generative AI (LLM) integration into the core product: from LLM-powered steps to natural-language workflow authoring and step-level automation suggestions, plus AI-managed dynamic workflows, shipped behind eval gates with human-in-the-loop fallbacks: AI-drafted workflows grew to 31% of all new workflows, and median time-to-first-workflow fell from 3 days to 4 hours.
• Packaged the AI capabilities as a usage-based add-on priced on executed automation steps, working with sales and marketing on positioning: ~€800K added ARR in the first year, and adopting accounts churned 1.8 pp less.
• Owned the roadmap end to end: replaced feature-request-driven quarterly planning with an outcome-based rolling roadmap built on quarterly bets and explicit kill criteria, presented monthly to the executive team and quarterly to the board.
• Rebuilt the product-management operating system: weekly customer-discovery cadence incl. workshop facilitation, RFC/decision-doc reviews and a single quarterly metrics narrative; coached four product managers, one promoted to senior during the engagement.
• Closed the engagement as scoped: hired and onboarded the permanent VP Product, handed over the process playbook and roadmap, and exited on schedule in June 2026.

Successful delivery of projects on behalf of customers:

• -> 2023 – present: Project management for the consolidation of sites/data centers for a large telecommunications provider (infrastructure project, customer: Telefonica)

• Opening and preparing new sites

• Application migrations

• Decommissioning and handover of old sites

• -> 2021 – 2022: IT multi-project management for a large car leasing company (customer: Athlon)

• Migration of applications to the cloud and to another data center

• Additional projects to expand and optimize the application landscape

• -> 2021: Project management for the development of a platform providing internet access on aircraft operated by various airlines (customer: m3Connect/German Telekom)

• -> 2017-2020: Responsible management of an IP network consolidation (infrastructure project, customer: Cisco/Vodafone) at a large telecommunications provider

• Planning and coordination of migrations and their rollout

• Team leadership and integration of different teams (network operators, hardware and service providers)

• Customer portal – further development and release change

Technologies / Tools: Clarity, Microsoft 365 / MS Office (especially Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Teams), SharePoint, Helaba internal AI environment

• Team size: 32 people
• Approach: traditional project management
• Planning and management of updates to the customer portal of the Wirtschafts- und Infrastrukturbank Hessen to the current vendor release
• Coordination of implementation in close cooperation with the vendor, portal operator, line organization, and other stakeholders involved
• Set-up of new test environments for migration and acceptance testing
• Planning of migrations and the required test stages and test procedures
• Preparation of the go-live script as well as planning and coordination of the cutover, hypercare, and subsequent stabilization phase
• Planning the expansion of the portal to include electronic identification
• Management, monitoring, and continuous adjustment of project planning
• Coordination of development, testing, release preparation, and go-live
• Planning and moderation of regular project and coordination meetings
• Management reporting on project progress, risks, and required actions
• Regular use of the Helaba internal AI environment to verify and ensure the quality of work results and project documents

Goal:

• Stabilize and realign a central software platform for digital office processes and restore solid product and delivery management.

Tasks & responsibility:

• Took over product and project management during a critical development phase
• Sharpened product vision, target picture, roadmap, and prioritized product capabilities
• Analyzed user needs, processes, system dependencies, and operational pain points
• Reorganized and prioritized backlog, releases, and work packages based on customer value and delivery risk
• Cross-functional leadership of engineering, product owners, scrum masters, architecture, business units, and operations
• Introduced reliable planning, decision-making, reporting, and escalation structures
• Moderated discovery, refinement, planning, and decision workshops
• Managed scope, risks, dependencies, and stakeholder expectations in a complex product environment

Result:

• Sharpened product vision and roadmap, stabilized delivery structures, and sustainably improved management and decision-making capabilities.

• Project management in the area of "Campaign, Offer and Performance Management Classic" for PAYBACK partners from the retail, FMCG and financial services sectors
• Campaign planning, development and implementation of offer-specific concepts and measures for the channels newsletter, digital advertising (web and app), stand-alone mailings and the print mailing "PAYBACK points overview"
• Coordination with PAYBACK program partners (including American Express, Netto, EDEKA, Marktkauf & Trinkgut), PAYBACK specialist departments and agencies
• Documentation of tasks and processes as well as onboarding of the future role holder

• Freelance work as a consultant (workshops and coaching for small to midsize companies in the areas of lean startup methodology, digital & AI transformation strategy, agile culture, design thinking)
• AI training & certification
• Project Management

• Led backlog prioritization for a $90M automotive SaaS product, ensuring alignment with business objectives and customer satisfaction.
• Led customer-facing product enhancements, leveraging data-driven insights and operational analytics to improve fulfillment performance, optimize logistics processes, and deliver measurable customer value.
• Delivered measurable business impact by improving product fill rate by 10–15% through optimized order fulfillment strategies.
• Led a 12-member cross-functional team in Agile/Scrum environments to deliver high-quality product increments on time.
• Collaborated with global stakeholders, engineering teams, and business partners across US & EU environments
• Expanded OEM partner ecosystem by onboarding from 8 to 14 partners (+75%), increasing integration and platform reach.
• Delivered a feature enabling size-restricted part sales, contributing to 7.1% revenue growth and reducing OEM costs by approximately $2.68M annually.
• Managed API integrations and data interfaces by gathering requirements, defining data mappings.
• Defined and tracked OKRs focused on growth, reliability, operational efficiency, and delivery performance.
• Utilized analysis techniques to derive actionable insights from trend analysis using large datasets and support strategic decision-making.
• Conducted UAT, A/B testing, regression testing, and usability validation to ensure quality delivery and improved user experience.

• Instructor for applied AI in the courses "AI Implementation Architect" and "AI Business Innovator"
• Running remote training sessions to qualify participants as "AI Implementation Architect" and "AI Business Innovator"
• Building n8n-based automations for the Digital Institut des Mittelstands