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Find experienced Program Managers in Frankfurt in minutes from over 15,000 CVs with the power of AI.

Whether you need to steer complex IT migrations, post-merger integrations, or regulatory compliance initiatives in banking and logistics, we connect you with vetted, available freelance program leaders.

About the role

The Role of a Program Manager in Frankfurt's Key Industries

In the financial capital of Germany, a freelance program manager oversees portfolios of interconnected projects to achieve strategic business benefits. Unlike project managers who focus on single deliverables, these professionals coordinate multiple workstreams, manage cross-functional dependencies, and align execution with corporate strategy. In Frankfurt, they frequently drive large-scale initiatives in banking compliance, digital transformation, and logistics optimization.

Key Deliverables of Freelance Program Directors

  • Strategic alignment and definition of the program roadmap
  • Governance framework establishment and stakeholder communication plans
  • Dependency mapping and resource allocation across multiple projects
  • Financial tracking, budget optimization, and risk mitigation strategies
  • Standardizing methodologies such as Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid frameworks

Core Skills and Methodologies

Top-tier program leaders possess a blend of technical expertise and leadership acumen. They are highly skilled in program management frameworks such as MSP, PRINCE2, or SAFe, allowing them to scale agile practices across massive organizations. Strong financial acumen is critical for managing multi-million Euro budgets, while stakeholder management skills enable them to navigate complex corporate hierarchies, negotiate with steering committees, and align external vendors.

Why Companies Hire Freelance Program Leaders

Organizations in Frankfurt hire freelance program managers to lead high-stakes transformations that require immediate, objective leadership without long-term commitment. Whether launching an international expansion, restructuring operations, or migrating legacy core-banking systems, an external expert brings unbiased governance. Freelancers hit the ground running, leverage deep cross-industry experience, and focus entirely on execution without getting entangled in internal company politics.

Meet FRATCH Program Managers

Florian Ripper

Florian Ripper

Principal, Program & Transformation Lead

Frankfurt am Main

Last position:

Global Programme Lead, Ecosystem Separation at Merck Group

  • Electronics – Surface Solutions | Carve-out of IT, data and system landscape*

  • Separation of a full business division's IT, data and system landscape following divestment; centrally governed investment envelope in the three-digit m€ range

  • Laboratory notebook and laboratory analytics platform stream: Palantir Foundry, Snowflake, Signals Notebook, Power BI and connected laboratory instrumentation; site transition completed without interruption to laboratory operations

  • Decision authority and escalation point for business, IT infrastructure, IT security and vendors; separation executed across globally distributed users and systems, handed over on schedule

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Mario Pucko

Mario Pucko

Senior IT Project Manager / Program Lead – Network Strategy 2030

Frankfurt am Main

Last position:

Senior IT Project Manager / Program Lead – Network Strategy 2030 at ALDB GmbH

  • Holistic responsibility for modernizing and expanding federal networks and upgrading critical data center and telecom infrastructure in the high-security agency environment of BDBOS
  • Planning and management of the expansion of national BOS network infrastructure in the VS-NfD/KRITIS environment with technical decision authority at the architecture and component level (Cisco, Layer 2/3, WAN redundancy)
  • Planning, tendering (EVB-IT/UVgO) and oversight of the upgrade of security-critical telecom infrastructure for emergency call 110/112 (ACD)
  • Capacity planning, rack integration, structured cabling, power supply, cooling concept (CRAC/In-Row) and DCIM monitoring for data center expansion
  • Building the IT department from scratch: structures, governance, processes, team recruiting, vendor selection and long-term IT strategy
  • Planning and managing infrastructure and application migrations: migration strategies, batch planning, hypercare stabilization and rollback concepts
  • Creating vendor-neutral specifications (telecom systems, signature solutions) according to EVB-IT and UVgO; contract award and vendor management
  • Setting up a secure IT environment according to BSI basic protection, ISO 27001 and VS-NfD; developing IT security concepts and CMDB analyses
  • Hands-on program leadership: decision papers for management and steering committees, risk management, reporting and change request control
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Garima Chomal

Garima Chomal

IT Program Director

Frankfurt am Main

Last position:

IT Program Director at Trax Retail

  • Directed global digital transformation programs enabling enterprise adoption of AI-powered retail analytics solutions
  • Led migration from legacy platforms to cloud-based ecosystems, improving data processing performance by over 40%
  • Served as strategic technology advisor to enterprise customers, aligning technology roadmaps with business objectives
  • Managed cross-functional global teams of 100+ resources across multiple regions
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Jan Petrasch

Jan Petrasch

Program / Project / Migration / Taskforce / Transformation Lead

Oberursel (Taunus)

Last position:

Operational Readiness / Migration Lead at Worldline

  • Migration of SEPA direct debits, credit transfers & card clearing to Worldline's internal platform as part of the outsourcing contract

  • Definition of the MIGR strategy

  • Mobilization of the community (300+ experts at client & Worldline)

  • Creation of the MIGR runbook (100+ workshops)

  • Close collaboration with upstream project streams: BUILD & TEST, as well as with the operating units

  • Set up of the governance framework, capacity management & reporting

  • 100% of SEPA DD, CT & CC transaction traffic migrated (7 months)

  • ~80 migrations carried out with a success rate of 70% ("first-time right")

  • Set up technical & manual production monitoring

  • Established a "fast-track" incident management process in the MIGR & hypercare phases

  • Set up 20+ exception handling processes

  • Conducted trainings

  • Implemented SLAs & billing

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Peter Weileder

Peter Weileder

Program and Project Manager / Internal Auditor / CISO

Frankfurt am Main

Last position:

ISO 27001 Auditor for health insurance archive system at Health insurance company

  • The replacement of the existing archive system (document management system – DMS) on a host-based platform is well advanced.

  • The internal audit is meant to ensure the company's quality standards.

  • GDPR

  • ISO 27001 ff.

  • BSI

  • DORA

  • Patient data regulations

  • Host / Cloud / S3 / Container / highly scalable / Nuxeo

  • Budget: 50,000

  • Team: 1

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Abdullah Abdullah

Abdullah Abdullah

Technical Program Manager - IT & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Frankfurt am Main

Last position:

Technical Program Manager - IT & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at Maxon Computer GmbH (a Nemetschek Company)

  • Led cross-functional compliance and IT programs spanning infrastructure, security, legal, and executive stakeholders, ensuring audit readiness and regulatory alignment.

  • Acted as single point of ownership for IT governance and CSR programs, defining scope, milestones, risks, and success metrics.

  • Partnered directly with VP of IT as a governance and control counterpart, supporting security incidents, compliance posture (ISO 27001, GDPR, SOC 2), and executive reporting.

  • Supported organizational readiness for emerging EU regulations, including the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and EU AI Act, by analyzing regulatory requirements, identifying governance and compliance impacts, and aligning internal policies and control processes.

  • Designed and scaled data collection and reporting processes for CSR and regulatory reporting across group and subsidiary level.

  • Drove process improvements and standardization, increasing transparency, predictability, and audit readiness.

  • Technologies and tools: Office 365 Power BI, MS SharePoint, MS Word, MS Excel, MS Teams, Zendesk, Confluence, JIRA, Vanta.

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Robert Pinnington

Robert Pinnington

Programme Manager

Wehrheim

Last position:

Programme Manager at IKEA

  • Designed and implemented a global lifecycle programme across EMEA, APAC & NA, unifying processes and systems to improve vendor coordination and operational efficiency
  • Developed and deployed supporting systems and processes, enhancing traceability and service reliability across logistics operations
  • Introduced a standardised Service Test & Validation framework, improving quality assurance and reducing deployment errors
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Falko Pfitzke

Falko Pfitzke

CTO & Technical Program Lead

Frankfurt am Main

Last position:

CTO & Technical Program Lead at WhosClose GmbH

  • Led end-to-end development of a mobile-first social platform enabling real-world connections.
  • Implemented a Scrum-based delivery framework and coordinated cross-functional teams to launch the MVP within three months.
  • Managed scope, roadmap, and ticket prioritisation.
  • Improved the React Native architecture for scalability and performance.
  • Oversaw integration of PostHog (analytics), Twilio (SMS), Stream (chat), MailerLite (email), AppsFlyer (deep links), and Google Places (location data).
  • Refined the business model, clarified user value, and initiated proof-of-concepts for a multi-agent system to enhance platform intelligence.
  • Established team workflows using Atlassian tools to ensure transparency and delivery quality.
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Jan Hanken

Jan Hanken

Product Lead

Frankfurt am Main

Last position:

Product Lead at GoDEAP.ai

  • Leading the development of a virtual data scientist platform designed for business professionals, students, and SMEs.
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Torsten Bolte

Torsten Bolte

Program Manager Refactoring

Frankfurt am Main

Last position:

Program Manager Refactoring at Astadia (an Amdocs company)

  • Lead all program and project management activities for assigned customers around Mainframe modernization offerings
  • Project management of Astadia services for Mainframe to Cloud project with German Railway (DB Cargo) and for legal services in Italy
  • Project manage execution of proof of concepts and assessments in Legal, Banking, Telecommunications and Automotive for customers globally
  • Represent Astadia in delivery, planning, and review contexts
  • Guide self-organizing agile development teams to improve structure and dependency management
  • Evaluate risks and impediments to success and assist with roadmap and increment planning
  • Establish and supervise metrics for key program work and present to leadership, portfolio management and partners
  • Tools: Teams, M365, Office365, MS Office, MS Project, Jira, SharePoint, Confluence, Azure DevOps
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Rüdiger Liebe

Rüdiger Liebe

Founder, Consultant, and Program and Project Manager

Offenbach am Main

Last position:

Founder, consultant, and program and project manager at Rüdiger Liebe & Partner Unternehmensberater

  • Advising decision-makers and supporting private and public organizations
  • Assisting with strategy implementation and project delivery
  • Leading training sessions in program and project management
  • Responsible for project volumes up to €10 million and lateral leadership of diverse project teams with up to 25 team members
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Discover over 15,000 top freelancers

Program Managers statistics

Aggregated from the professional profiles of matched freelancers.

Experience

21 years

Position duration

2.6 years

Positions per freelancer

11

Top business areas

Information Technology, Project Management, Operations

Top industries

Information Technology, Banking and Finance, Professional Services

Certification focus areas

Information Technology, Project Management, Legal

Bachelor's degree or higher

88%

Master's degree or higher

38%

Certifications per freelancer

4

Most common languages

English, German, Spanish

Speak two or more languages

91%

Daily Rate Distribution

0 1 2 3 4
<€640 €640-800 €800-960 €960-1120 €1120+

The chart shows how the daily rates of freelancers in this role are distributed, based on recent contracts on our platform. Each bar covers a rate range — its height shows how many freelancers charge within that range. Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.

Average rates for Program Managers & Seniority distribution

Rates are based on recent contracts and do not include FRATCH margin.

1000
750
500
250
Rate comparison chart
Daily rate avg. 882 €

The average daily rate is the mean of all daily rates from recent contracts of comparable freelancers on our platform.

1000
750
500
250
Rate comparison chart
Median rate 880 €

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.

Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Questions in mind? Get key insights about FRATCH

While a project manager focuses on delivering a specific, single initiative within scope and budget, a program manager oversees a group of related projects to achieve broader strategic objectives. They manage interdependencies, resource constraints, and overall business benefits.

The financial services, fintech, logistics, and automotive sectors in Frankfurt regularly require a freelance program director to guide complex changes. These industries face strict regulatory pressures and rapid technological advancements, making experienced contract leadership highly valuable.

A seasoned program director establishes robust risk management frameworks early in the lifecycle. They identify cross-project dependencies, track critical paths, and implement mitigation strategies before issues escalate, ensuring the steering committee remains fully informed.

For many international financial institutions and logistics hubs, English is the primary working language. However, a bilingual program lead fluent in both German and English is often preferred to navigate local regulatory compliance and communicate effectively with all stakeholders.

Hiring a freelance program manager makes sense when you face a temporary, high-impact initiative like a post-merger integration or system overhaul. Freelancers provide specialized expertise and immediate availability, allowing you to scale down once the transition phase is complete.

They are skilled in structured frameworks like MSP or PRINCE2, but frequently adapt to agile practices like SAFe or Scrum. An experienced contract program manager selects and tailors the methodology to match the client's existing organizational structure and project goals.

A professional interim program manager works closely with executive sponsors to define clear key performance indicators. They continuously evaluate ongoing workstreams against these strategic goals to ensure the delivered business benefits justify the program investment.

While many tasks can be handled remotely, highly complex initiatives in Frankfurt often require a hybrid model. Strategic alignment workshops, stakeholder negotiations, and steering committee meetings benefit significantly from on-site presence, while standard tracking can be managed remotely.

The average hourly rate for Program Managers in Frankfurt is 110 €, which corresponds to a daily rate of about 882 € based on an 8-hour working day.

Of the freelancers working as Program Managers in Frankfurt, 88% hold at least a Bachelor's degree and 38% hold at least a Master's degree.

On average, freelancers working as Program Managers in Frankfurt have 21 years of professional experience, with a single engagement typically lasting around 2.6 years.

The most common languages among freelancers working as Program Managers in Frankfurt are English (100%), German (91%), and Spanish (18%).

The most common industries among freelancers working as Program Managers in Frankfurt are Information Technology (91%), Banking and Finance (82%), and Professional Services (55%).

The most common business areas among freelancers working as Program Managers in Frankfurt are Information Technology (100%), Project Management (100%), and Operations (82%).

FRATCH Program Managers main locations

Our freelancers and interim experts are at home across the DACH region — available on-site in the major business hubs or fully remote. Choose a location to discover matched specialists, local market insights and up-to-date availability.

Berlin Hamburg Munich Cologne Frankfurt Stuttgart Dusseldorf Leipzig Dortmund Essen Bremen Dresden Hanover Nuremberg

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Philipp Thomaschewski

FRATCH CEO

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