Product Owners in Germany

• Proactive support of management in business field development & innovation management

• New development of a suite of business applications for analyzing valuation, P&L, and market price risk data

• Automation of all internal and external business and work processes

• Development of AI-based and AI-supported ETL processes as well as data analysis

• Business use-case development

• Business and work process optimization

• Enterprise architecture management

• Sales data analysis and forecasting as well as capture

• Inventory management & reordering

• Supplier management and communication

• Customs processing & clearance

• Shipping handling & warehouse coordination

• Interface management

• Technologies used: Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams, JTL-Wawi, JTL-WMS, OTTO Partner Connect (OPC), Amazon Seller Central, DHL Global Forwarding, Jira, Draw.IO, Java (8,17,21,25), Jenkins, SonarQube, Git, Gitea, Spring Boot, Spring Batch, Vaadin, H2, PostgreSQL, Docker, Local LLMs, Postman, JasperSoft Studio, JasperReports

• As part of the project, the further development of the identity management system was driven forward. This included a comprehensive refactoring of the interfaces to the connected target systems. In addition, several special systems were successfully connected to the IAM to ensure end-to-end identity and authorization management.
• Technical design and solution proposals for IAM system development
• Requirements analysis and requirements management (IREB, BABOK)
• Alignment of the strategy with the future target architecture (TOGAF)
• Prototyping of solutions
• Documentation of requirements (Innovator)
• Analysis and documentation of requirements and creation of process models (UML, BPMN, ArchiMate)
• Modeling of requirements and system functionalities (OOA/OOD, UML)
• Further development of interfaces (SOAP, REST)
• Carrying out architecture reviews

• Project management of the legal and system-side integration of Taschenkaufhaus into the Voxa group: conversion of all contracts, accounts, and system access rights on the defined cutover date
• Migration from Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 to 2013: analysis of all existing interfaces, redefinition of processes, and coordinated go-live without interrupting operations
• Integration of the complaints and returns process into MS Dynamics NAV 2013; major process simplification through standardization
• Introduction of a new POS system (Shopify POS) in all stores: requirements analysis, configuration, rollout, and employee training
• Use of n8n automation workflows for data reconciliation between marketplaces and ERP; manual processes significantly reduced

• 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)

Concept and implementation of a unified-commerce platform for SMEs for selling and building multi-product bundles

Successes: On-time concept, delivery, and customer acceptance of a 100% functional, CPQ-based buy flow process for configuring and selling multi-product bundles within the given 90-day time frame. Successfully tested integration of various interface services for the following areas: customer search, customer data enrichment, address validation, service qualification, phone number validation, credit check, appointment selection, and quote-to-order transition.

Responsibilities:

• Strategic target delivery: deriving and implementing strategic customer goals (e.g. release content, business value).
• Backlog management: creating and refining backlog items (initiatives, epics, user stories, defects) in close coordination with the project team and customer.
• Prioritization & releases: responsibility for prioritizing the product backlog and delivering defined release goals.
• Deliverable tracking: tracking work results on both the supplier and customer side.
• Roadmap & release planning: developing and implementing roadmaps and release plans together with the customer.
• Scope responsibility: responsibility for the contractually agreed scope of services.
• Claim management: active claim and change management toward the customer.
• Team coordination: steering and coordinating the development team.
• Using synergies: making use of synergies between customer projects and product development.
• Offer preparation: preparing offers (with supervision) and presenting them on site to customers and partners.

Skills: development, communication, and implementation of product visions; product backlog management; stakeholder management; regular reporting to management and steering committees; requirements analysis & engineering; planning and documenting workshops; functional leadership and coordination of (distributed) project teams and external service providers; epic management; user story specifications; creating use cases, support with software tests and user acceptance testing (UAT); release management and sprint planning; design of target processes; process optimization; planning, concept, and specification of interfaces to existing and new systems; identification, assessment, and steering of project risks; active claim and change management; facilitation of sprint planning and reviews; data migration; Scrum; Kanban; REST API; JSON; XML; BPMN; UML; Jira; Confluence

• Reduced technical complexity and created a clear architectural foundation for AI-supported business processes.
• Used internal knowledge in a secure on-premise platform through RAG and fine-tuning concepts.
• Built the basis for automatable workflows and higher efficiency.
• Designed and set up the AI infrastructure (NVIDIA DGX Spark, vector DB).
• Requirement gathering and stakeholder management.
• Prototyping of use cases (knowledge chatbot, document analysis).
• Technologies: Qdrant, Ollama, AnythingLLM, n8n, DGX Spark, Python/PyTorch.

• Orchestrate cross-functional delivery across organisational units in the Connectivity domain, aligning teams around integrated end-to-end, customer-testable value rather than isolated component delivery.
• Drive a shift from local component optimisation towards shared outcomes and a common delivery goal, increasing focus and enabling significantly faster integrated delivery.
• Coordinate across 15 cross-functional organisations in a highly complex OEM environment; bring Product, Engineering, Programme Management and specialist functions together to resolve dependencies and improve decision-making.
• Coach Product Managers, Product Owners and stakeholders on product responsibility, prioritisation, outcome orientation and aligned backlogs.
• Use Claude through an AWS Bedrock integration to analyse Jira and Confluence content, identify patterns, dependencies and quality gaps, and support structured product and delivery decisions.
• Establish AI-native requirements excellence with LLM-supported quality gates for epics, features, stories, acceptance criteria, roadmaps and task breakdowns; scale adoption through templates and prompt playbooks.

• Product responsibility for the central platform "one" as a group-wide web-based customer portal
• Coordination of the connection of 20 group companies to the product platform
• Derivation and steering of a group-wide product strategy and roadmap aligned with company goals
• Prioritization and bundling of strategic requirements from the various group companies
• Harmonization of different interests and moderation of complex decision-making processes at management level
• Ensuring the technical and business integration of the product into existing system landscapes, business processes, and business models
• Building transparent governance and decision-making structures for group-wide product development
• Representation of the product towards internal and external stakeholders at leadership level

• Overall project planning for resources, budget, costs, license and service contracts, cost optimization and negotiations
• Leading and managing the project team and achieving the project goals
• Leading digitalization projects and their phases such as concept, planning, change and requirements management, configuration, implementation, testing, interfaces, communication and approval
• Conducting planning meetings
• Organizing, planning and conducting team, customer and requirements workshops with up to 50 participants at operational and management level
• Main contact for technical and functional topics as well as project coordination
• Recording and maintaining backlogs (user stories and EPICs) in Jira and turning requirements into user stories and prioritizing them
• Approval and publication of online services in the Wirtschafts-Service-Portal.NRW (WSP.NRW)
• Creating and maintaining project documentation
• Planning and designing the nationwide rollout/reuse as part of the once-for-all principle via WSP/FIT-Connect
• Communication between stakeholders, customers, authorities and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy (MWIKE)
• Work according to the SCRUM method

• Definition and setup of subject areas
• Building a governance model for the department with areas of responsibility
• IT strategy, project management, process management, as well as quality and sustainability management
• Developing a communication strategy for the group
• Creating an IT strategy
• Designing templates, guidelines, and processes for standardized working
• Capturing strategic guardrails and grouping ongoing projects – deriving a roadmap for strategic planning
• Reviewing ongoing projects
• Creating staffing calculations and volume structures
• Defining job profiles

• Capture and analyze stakeholder needs to define clear requirements and make sure the new website meets user expectations.
• Took on the role of Product Owner to lead the development team, set priorities, and monitor implementation progress.
• Coordinated the implementation of Optimizely as the new CMS, including adapting and integrating all required features to ensure a smooth user flow.
• Ensured the successful integration of features within the Condor lifecycle, such as flight booking, check-in, and other relevant services, to create a complete user experience.
• Actively communicated with stakeholders to gather feedback and make adjustments during the development process, continuously improving the user experience.
• Planned and carried out tests to ensure the quality of the implemented features and that all requirements were met.
• Methods used: Agile methods, SCRUM, SAFe
• Tools used: Optimizely, Jira, Confluence
• Result: Significant improvement in user experience, optimized booking and check-in processes, and a stronger digital presence for Condor in the market.

• Led global automation projects in Hybrid Cloud, focusing on process standardization and service delivery optimization across international teams.
• Managed the product roadmap, prioritized backlogs, and aligned business goals with technical inputs using Jira.
• Fostered cross-functional collaboration to define project objectives and ensure alignment with strategic goals across departments.
• Defined and documented user stories and acceptance criteria with stakeholders.

• 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

• Freelance product owner, scrum master and agile coach in various projects spanning from local agencies to multinational corporations in diverse industries.

• Last projects:

• Adevinta: Technical Project Manager responsible for coordination of several sub-workstreams building the world’s largest classifieds multi-tenant platform.

• Aroundhome (a ProSiebenSat.1 company): Product Manager implementing and verifying on the business side a concept for digital qualification of user requests for matching service providers.

• Peek & Cloppenburg Düsseldorf: Product Manager Mobile advising on and guiding the rebuild of Android and iOS apps.

• Visual Meta GmbH (an Axel Springer company), Berlin: Director Product co-leading the Product & Engineering department together with the Director Engineering.

• Responsibilities at Visual Meta GmbH:

• Define and deliver a 3–5 year horizon product strategy including a product vision & mission connecting to existing company strategy and strategies from adjacent departments.

• Refine an existing OKR process together with OKR master and directors of other departments to increase focus and outcome.

• Support the Director Engineering in creating a platform transformation strategy to transform a monolithic on-premise tech stack into a service-oriented, cloud-based architecture and establish a domain-based organizational setup.

• Accountability for a motivated and talented team of 5 head-level colleagues and 17 operational team members from product management, data and UX/UI design.

• Key achievements at Visual Meta GmbH:

• Defined and delivered a 3–5 year horizon product strategy including a product vision & mission.

• Increased focus within OKR process by moving from 10 company-level objectives to 2 and from several hundred team-level key results to a few dozen.

• Created a career path framework for the product team defining roles and responsibilities from junior to head level positions.