Alexander Pokorny - Interim CIO for SAP and AI Governance

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Vienna, Austria

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Experience

Aug 2024 - Present

2 years 2 months

Vienna, Austria

Owner & Lecturer

Own company for AI governance and data products, Vienna

Consulting and interim management at the interface between IT operations and regulation
Impact analysis and implementation planning for NISG 2026 and the EU AI Act, including risk management and reporting and evidence processes
Training for governing bodies and employees on regulatory obligations
Lectures in Data & Information Management and Human-Machine Interaction at University of Applied Sciences Burgenland, since 2023
Supervision of master’s theses and participation in the examination board
Presentations for business and educational institutions
Design and development of data and AI products, platforms and pipelines
Privacy-first architectures and zero-knowledge encryption, cloud-native on EU infrastructure
MLOps and AIOps in live operations
Own applications under own brand: shared codebase, separate delivery for each target device
AI-assisted software development (vibe coding), complete agentic pipelines, code generation, implementation, automated testing, CI/CD and release cycles
Publications on the EU AI Act, NIS2, DORA, CRA and CER as an integrated governance system
Publications on data sovereignty, cloud economics and industrial image processing
AI governance / compliance: data quality, Responsible AI, EU AI Act readiness, risk classification, AI ethics

Mar 2022 - Aug 2024

2 years 6 months

Vienna, Austria

Head of Data Intelligence

Online gaming provider, international

Responsibility for 24/7 operations of business- and compliance-critical systems
Responsibility for budgets in the millions
Built and led an internal department with more than 40 employees and up to 22 direct reports, comprising Data Engineering, Analytics, BI and application development
Management of subordinate managers; promoted four of them from within the team
Supported two return-to-work processes after parental leave; stable staffing after the reorganization
Represented roadmap priorities in steering committees before the board and CEO
Group cloud strategy and central project to renew the DWH, BI, analytics and reporting platform
Decision in favor of a cloud-native rebuild over incremental modernization, with eight legacy workstreams deprioritized
Approval by the Steering Committee based on a one-page decision paper
Reduced platform costs by around half by shutting down on-premise hardware and not renewing SQL Server Enterprise licenses
Established the operating model (roles, processes, governance, KPI and service ownership) for Data Engineering, BI/Analytics and data-driven applications
ITIL-based service operations using ServiceNow: incident and change management in one of the teams, managed through service ownership, escalation paths and KPI analysis
On-call rotation for the platforms under responsibility: escalation levels, restart and recovery, security monitoring in operations and post-mortem analysis after incidents
Annual ISO 27001 audits under leadership responsibility: preparation and coordination across four teams, participation in audit interviews and system reviews
Negotiated the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, including Cloudera integration through Azure credits; saved around EUR 150,000 by applying existing credit volumes
Negotiated further framework agreements with cloud and software providers
Data platform license management under own responsibility
Demand planning, allocation and tracking, purchasing through central procurement
Portfolio and dependency management across product groups
Post-merger integration at system and data level: migration of acquired units’ assets into the existing platform
Translated customer requirements into technical solutions
Stakeholder, partner and supplier management
Advised on the CRM platform decision (Salesforce versus Microsoft Dynamics), including implementation
Supplier landscape comprising Microsoft, Cloudera, Salesforce and Tableau
Coaching and leadership development
Personnel responsibility across the full cycle: recruiting, hiring and target setting
Staff development, deputy arrangements and succession planning for key roles

Apr 2020 - Mar 2022

2 years

Vienna, Austria

Head of Digital Business Development

IT service provider and systems integrator, DACH

Regional management for Germany with P&L responsibility
Sales and presales in Austria and the broader DACH market
Project management for customer projects from proposal through project completion
200% revenue growth in one and a half years in a region under development
Disciplinary and functional management of staff at the Munich location
Development of new sales channels and major customers
Harmonization of traditional and agile management principles
Design and implementation of ML projects for major customers in the finance and retail sectors
Revenue and demand forecasting models, fraud detection and demand forecasts
Governance mandate at a central bank: data quality, model governance and regulatory traceability
Workshops, presentations and presales activities for major customers in digitalization
Built networks with AI companies from start-ups to major providers, as well as partnerships with cloud providers

Jun 2018 - Dec 2019

1 year 7 months

Vienna, Austria

Lead Data Scientist

Global industrial group for high-performance materials

Derived the divisional data and AI strategy from the division’s business goals, from board decision to operational deployment
Implemented applied AI use cases in manufacturing
Computer vision defect detection in production
IoT telemetry analysis and predictive maintenance
Real-time data integration in manufacturing across the automation layers: SCADA, MES and ERP connected end to end
Integration through OPC UA and MQTT, telemetry and edge processing from operating plants
Specification compliance in quality control as a core requirement, especially for aerospace customers (Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier) with the strictest standards for safety-critical components
Planned digital route cards: transition from paper as an accompanying document to a fully digital document from melting furnace to quality control
Group-wide view through process mining with Celonis and mapping into a central analysis system, without prior system consolidation across individual SAP instances for each subsidiary
Project management for AI-based and data-driven initiatives in an industrial environment, including data lake POCs
Functional management of divisional AI projects
Architecture design for data and ML pipelines
Trainer for the board and senior management in Data Science and AI
Developed the Data Science & AI curriculum for the divisional Digital Academy
Collaboration with academic institutions (FH Joanneum, Montanuniversität Leoben), management of external technology partners
Secured public research funding through FFG applications for research and digitalization projects

Nov 2015 - May 2018

2 years 7 months

Vienna, Austria

Head of Global and EU Reporting Systems

Global FMCG group

Represented the company before the European Commission, the Italian Ministero della Salute, the Austrian Ministry of Health, industry associations and international scientific bodies
Responsibility for business-critical IT landscapes under strict regulatory requirements (EU Product Directive)
Successfully implemented the EU reporting system under the Product Directive on time and under extreme time pressure
Secured a technically justified deadline extension in negotiations with the European Commission as representative of the industry association, after the receiving systems on the authorities’ side were not operational
Group-wide S/4HANA migration program of around 400 person-years: led the production data and regulatory reporting stream from requirements through design and implementation to acceptance; the financial data stream was handled by Finance
Programs with 50 to 250 person-years as System Architect and Development Lead, with geographically distributed developers
Built the support model and transferred knowledge to a third-party provider
Led project teams of 50–60 people including external consultants; distributed teams in Europe, America and Asia
Actively managed development of the European reporting portal together with the Austrian Ministry of Health
Selected and managed external consultants (Accenture, TCS, WIPRO, HCL)
Tenders, candidate interviews, contract negotiations and escalation management

Feb 2009 - Oct 2015

6 years 9 months

Vienna, Austria

Head of Business and Systems Development

FMCG Group, worldwide

Led the architecture, design, and implementation project for the global regulatory compliance and reporting systems
Built and operated an independent IT organization within the Group IT for Scientific & Regulatory Affairs for several years, with its own domain in the data center
Held responsibility for hardware, servers, virtualization, networking, backup, and recovery
Managed physical and system access control using fingerprints and later RSA tokens as hardware devices and on mobile phones
Combined development, operations (DevOps), support, and on-call services in one unit
Developed the global ingredient reporting system with full SAP integration and reporting obligations for each market under national law
Reduced calculation effort by a factor of 10 through an architecture redesign and performance-critical algorithms from combinatorial optimization
Migrated data from the legacy SiS system to SAP R/3 and consolidated production data into a central SAP system as the single source of truth
Established a binding master data and bill of materials model from SKU level down to subcomponents, with defined maintenance processes and a complete change history
Built interfaces to around 40 production sites using a standardized pattern based on a complete initial download and change history (ABAP, scheduler, SQL)
Implemented a delta mechanism for transferring data from SAP to local systems, with monitoring and 24/7 supervision, deployed locally according to each site's software and machinery
Connected SAP PLM and business reporting through SAP BW
Built the high-security regulatory platform in Vienna, later operated in Geneva
Developed the SAP-to-MSSQL interface as a Group-wide reference implementation, used for more than a decade across J-SOX, the EU Product Directive, and several national regimes
Consolidated the portfolio onto the SAP reference platform based on three criteria: regulatory defensibility, ongoing operating costs, and migration time
Introduced Scrum, Kaizen, and DevOps as the first reference implementation in the Group
Managed development and operations in one process: changes through Scrum releases, incidents through incident management with defined response times, and shared KPIs for both
Delivered post-merger integration after acquisitions at application and data level by transferring production and master data into the Group SAP system
Harmonized heterogeneous landscapes through SOA and ESB solutions
Implemented project management and KPI systems as well as process automation
Developed scientific calculation systems for Scientific & Regulatory Affairs

Aug 2005 - Jan 2009

3 years 6 months

Vienna, Austria

Regulatory Affairs Project Team Lead

FMCG Group, worldwide

Managed regulatory submissions under national and international legal frameworks (EU, WHO, FCTC, FDA)
Developed the first global reporting system, reducing calculation time from three hours to three minutes
Established security standards for highly confidential recipes and intellectual property; held the highest security clearance in the company

Jan 1999 - Dec 2011

13 years

Vienna, Austria

Founder & Media Expert

Own design, development, and media company, Vienna

IT consulting as well as layout design for publications, textbooks, and web portals
Interactive learning materials and media applications
Commercial advertising materials and publishing support

Jan 1997 - Dec 2000

4 years

University Lecturer

University of Vienna

Lectures on computational chemistry and high-performance computing
Lectures on quantum mechanics and solid-state chemistry
Teaching scientific publishing techniques

Industry experience

See where this freelancer has spent most of their professional time.

Experienced in Information Technology, Education, Media and Entertainment, Manufacturing, Food and Beverage, and Banking and Finance.

Information Technology

Education

Media and Entertainment

Manufacturing

Food and Beverage

Banking and Finance

Business area experience

See which departments and functions this freelancer has contributed to most.

Experienced in Information Technology, Project Management, Operations, Marketing, Research and Development, and Strategy.

Information Technology

Project Management

Operations

Marketing

Research and Development

Strategy

Summary

Interim management, IT leadership and program management for SAP and AI transformations in regulated industries. 29 years in IT, including around two decades in leadership: own company management, corporate division, country organization, building a department with more than 40 employees and up to 22 direct reports, responsibility for budgets in the millions, reporting to the board and CEO.

SAP for 14 years, from R/3 and ECC through BW and PLM to S/4HANA, BTP and CAP: group-wide S/4HANA program with around 400 person-years as responsible stakeholder, programs with 50 to 250 person-years as System Architect and Development Lead, an SAP-to-MSSQL interface as a group-wide reference implementation across around 40 plants.

Data and AI from board decision to operations in under one year. Regulatory requirements ranging from ISO 27001 in the annual audit cycle and NIS2 to the EU AI Act, including representation before the European Commission and national ministries.

Skills

Cloud, Platforms & Architecture: Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Aws, Multi-Cloud And Hybrid, Saas, Paas, Faas, Colocation
Microsoft Stack: M365, Teams, Sharepoint Including Development, Active Directory, Sql Server
Operating Models: Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), Microservices, Devops And Dataops, Ci/Cd, Infrastructure As Code, Git, Virtualization, Backup And Recovery
Sap: R/3 Including Data Structure, Ecc, Bw, Plm, Sap S/4hana, Btp, Cap, Ai Core, Integration Services, Rfc Development, .Net Connector, Master Data And Bill Of Materials Models
Data Governance & Security: Data Governance, Data Quality And Cleansing, Master Data Management, Data Modeling
Encryption: End-To-End, Zero-Knowledge, Pbkdf2
Data Sovereignty: Eu Self-Hosting, Privacy By Design
Data Platforms: Etl/Elt, Ssis, Data Lakes, Data Warehouse And Warehousing, Big Data, Databricks, Apache Spark, Apache Kafka, Nifi, Cloudera, Bigquery, Batch And Streaming, Edge Computing, Opc Ua And Mqtt Telemetry, Scada And Mes Integration, Process Mining (Celonis)
Software Development: C++, C, C#, Python, R, Sql, Fortran 77/95/2018, Matlab, Mathematica, Sas, Vba, Bash, Powershell, Perl, Php, Kotlin, Rust
Ai-Assisted Development: Claude Code, Antigravity, Cursor, Github Copilot, Agentic Workflows From Specification Through Implementation To Release
Web And Frontend: Javascript, Html5, Css3, Xml, Xslt, Angular, React, Sveltekit, .Net, Asp.Net Mvc
Databases: Ms Sql Server Through 2025, Postgresql, Nosql
Methods & Modeling: Agile (Scrum, Kanban), Togaf, Itil, Cobit, Value Engineering, Lean Management, Project Management
Enterprise Architecture: Bpmn, Uml, Object-Oriented Analysis And Design, Soa, Esb
Tools: Sparx Enterprise Architect, Altova Missionkit, Oxygen Xml, Signavio, Visual Studio, Ms Visio, Ms Project, Latex
It Operations & Service Management: 24/7 Operations, Server And Network Operations, Monitoring, Automation, Observability With Grafana, Prometheus, Alerting, Availability And Latency Management
Service Operations: Itil Service Operations With Servicenow, Incident, Change, Service Ownership, Escalation, Kpi, Service Desk And User Support, Service Catalog, Ticket Management, Availability And Capacity Management, Configuration And Asset Management
Access And Identity: Active Directory, Role And Access Control Concepts, Segregation Of Duties, Multi-Factor Authentication With Rsa Tokens And Fingerprints, Privileged Access
Operational Resilience: On-Call Rotation, Incident And Crisis Management, Restart And Recovery, Post-Mortem Analysis, Disaster Recovery And Emergency Exercises
Business Continuity: Emergency And Business Continuity Management, Management Of External Service Providers And Outsourcing
Suppliers And Contracts: Tendering, Selection, Framework And License Agreements, Sla Negotiation And Management, Escalation Management, Offshore And Nearshore Units
Artificial Intelligence & Analytics: Predictive Modeling, Statistical Modeling, Anomaly Detection, Time Series Forecasting, Risk Modeling, Machine Condition Recognition
Generative Ai: Llms (Gpt, Claude, Gemini, Llama, Mistral, Self-Hosted Llms And Slms), Rag, Agents, Mcp, Fine-Tuning
Machine Learning: Neural Networks, Image Recognition, Reinforcement Learning, Digital Twins And Simulation, Nlp And Text Analytics, Explainability (Lime, Surrogate Models)
Business Intelligence: Reporting, Dashboards, Kpi Systems, Power Bi, Tableau, Sas, Ssrs, Ssas
Operating Systems: Macos, Windows (Server), Linux (Debian, Ubuntu), Bsd, Chromeos
Regulation & Compliance: Eu Ai Act, Iso 42001, Data Protection, Gdpr, Privacy By Design, Anonymization, Us Cloud Act, Jurisdictional Risks, Schrems Ii, Data Sovereignty For The Dach Region, Nis2/Nisg, Dora, Cra, Cer, It Security, Cybersecurity, Risk Management, Iso 27001 In The Audit Cycle

Languages

German

Native

English

Advanced

French

Intermediate

Spanish

Elementary

Education

Sep 1991 - Jun 1999

University of Vienna

Mag. rer. nat. · Chemistry · Vienna, Austria · with distinction

Sep 1983 - Oct 1991

Theresian Academy

Matura · Modern Languages Grammar School · Vienna, Austria · with distinction

Certifications & licenses

Project Management Certification

bit Training Institute

Driving licenses A, B, BE

Certified Trainer

Inland and sea boating licenses, marine radio license (UBI, SRC/GMDSS)

Statistics

Experience

Total positions 9

Experience in Information Technology 19.5 y

Avg length 4 y 2 m

Longest experience 12 y 11 m

Global experience

Countries worked in 1 (Austria)

Primary country Austria

Expertise

Recent roles Owner & Lecturer, Head of Data Intelligence, Head of Digital Business Development

Main industries Information Technology, Education, Media and Entertainment

Main business areas Information Technology, Project Management, Operations

Qualifications

Highest degree Master

Certifications earned 4

Profile

Member since

September 2026

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Frequently asked questions

Have questions? Find more information here.

Alexander is based in Vienna, Austria and can operate in on-site, hybrid, and remote work models.

Alexander speaks the following languages: German (Native), English (Advanced), French (Intermediate), Spanish (Elementary).

Alexander has at least 29 years of experience. During this time, Alexander has worked in at least 9 different roles and for 8 different companies. The average length of individual experience is 3 years and 3 months. Note that Alexander may not have shared all experience and actually has more experience.

Based on recent experience, Alexander would be well-suited for roles such as: Owner & Lecturer, Head of Data Intelligence, Head of Digital Business Development.

Alexander's most recent position is Owner & Lecturer at Own company for AI governance and data products, Vienna.

In recent years, Alexander has worked for Own company for AI governance and data products, Vienna, Online gaming provider, international, IT service provider and systems integrator, and DACH.

Alexander is most experienced in industries like Information Technology, Education, and Media and Entertainment. Alexander also has some experience in Manufacturing, Food and Beverage, and Banking and Finance.

Alexander is most experienced in business areas like Information Technology, Project Management, and Operations. Alexander also has some experience in Marketing, Research and Development, and Strategy.

Alexander has recently worked in industries like Information Technology, Education, and Banking and Finance.

Alexander has recently worked in business areas like Information Technology, Project Management, and Strategy.

Alexander holds a Master in Chemistry from University of Vienna.

Alexander has 4 certificates. Among them, these include: Project Management Certification, Driving licenses A, B, BE, and Certified Trainer.

Alexander is immediately available full-time for suitable projects.

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Daily rate avg. 850 €

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Median rate 780 €

The median daily rate is the middle value of all daily rates — half of comparable freelancers charge less, half charge more. Unlike the average, it is barely affected by outliers.

Calculated based on our freelancers’ daily rates as of 10 Sep 2026. Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.