Artificial Intelligence Expert in Düsseldorf

• QA Lead for end-to-end quality assurance of the Sparkasse & Sparkasse Business banking apps (iOS/Android); design and implementation of the Test Strategy including functional testing, regression testing, and UAT for eID, Push Notifications, and white-label components
• Creation and maintenance of test concepts and test plans in TestRail; structured Defect Management and error analysis; stakeholder management and risk management for the early identification of critical quality risks
• Accessibility Testing according to WCAG 2.1 (iOS/Android); coordination of AI-supported test automation and optimization of test processes to shorten release cycles
• Release Management: planning, management, and coordination of all test activities; status reporting to management and stakeholders; quality assessment of releases and release recommendations in an Agile/Scrum environment
• Challenge: Highly complex build and release process across several Sparkasse institutions; close coordination with the DevOps team to stabilize the CI/CD pipeline and ensure reproducible test builds before every release.

Tools: Jira, Confluence, TestRail, Android Studio, Xcode, Firebase, Jenkins, GA4

• Success: Successful launch of the eID authentication process - quality assurance ensured for 50+ Sparkasse institutions

Time-limited interim assignment filling a vacant program leadership position: joint leadership of a complex software project and orchestration of several agile teams (business, development, and DevOps teams), as well as actively driving change processes.

• Program Management & Planning: Responsibility for creating and updating milestone, resource, and budget plans to ensure project objectives using agile and hybrid methods.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Promoting cooperation and knowledge sharing across teams; resolving blockers through proactive conflict management and targeted facilitation.
• Stakeholder Management & Transparency: Ensuring transparent and audience-appropriate communication within and outside the project organization using modern project management tools.

• Optimizing and accelera­tion of our Gitlab CI pipeline

• Conceptual work for the PoC of the Zero Trust system

• Extension of the policy-engine backend in Go

• Extension of the policy-testing mechanism in Python

• Architectural design of the PEP component of Zero Trust

• Documentation of the product

• Technologies: Zero Trust, Go, Python, Gitlab CI, Docker, JWT, Domain-Driven Design

Project scope: Supported the establishment, scaling and continuous improvement of project management and support processes by modernizing governance, processes, documentation, deliverables tracking, training content and tool-supported ways of working across a complex energy project environment.

Key contributions

• Supported the build-up and maturation of the PMO department, including governance structures, operational frameworks, project management processes, templates and deliverables tracking mechanisms.
• Conducted As-Is analysis of existing processes and their documentation, including process inventory, interface mapping, problem identification and creation of visualizations and white papers to improve shared understanding.
• Reviewed and improved project management documentation, templates and work instructions, including support for a project document master list to strengthen standardization and control.
• Designed and supported rollout of a lessons learned process and related system/application, including pilot preparation, coordination and implementation support.
• Mapped and supported implementation of a new resource management process connected to the rollout of a resource planning tool.
• Led and supported adoption of agile ways of working and Atlassian tools, including Jira and Confluence team boards, plans/roadmaps, dashboards, sprint planning and retrospectives.
• Acted as key user for continuous usage improvements in PMO tools and collaboration practices.
• Developed training curricula, instructional videos, supporting materials and PMO Open Doors sessions to improve capability transfer and provide a recurring forum for updates and information sharing.
• Developed a skills matrix concept and supported rollout as a basis for structured capability management and training demand analysis.
• Supported preparation of department offsites, implementation of a new Integrated Management System (IMS), creation of a SharePoint-based PMO website and department integration after restructuring.

Results / business impact

• Improved project management & PMO structure, processes and their documentation
• Enhanced transparency and standardization across processes, documentation, governance routines and project deliverables tracking.
• Enhanced information flow and knowledge transfer through SharePoint-based communication, PMO forums, training curricula and instructional videos.
• Strengthened lessons learned, resource planning, agile collaboration, capability management and post-restructure department integration.

• Training AI models, evaluating images and text UI/UX, turning the provided data into insights through OpenAI Feather as part of the machine learning workflow

Technologies: OpenAI Feather

Project: Design and implementation of an AI product for four business use cases

Project management for an AI project at a leading provider of large-scale catering and food services, where a production-ready AI product for four use cases was implemented together with an external development partner: automated briefings based on CRM and document data, voice-based capture and structuring of reports, detection and consolidation of duplicates in master data, and data-based market analyses. A key focus was a data-protection-compliant architecture that passed the internal IT security review and enabled production use.

• Translation of business requirements into clearly defined AI use cases with a focused product scope and clear value proposition
• Selection and evaluation of models and architecture options for text extraction, speech-to-text, and context enrichment from business systems, including LLM integration, function calling, and retrieval
• Development and implementation of an architecture with European hosting, data minimization, and masking of personal data as a prerequisite for approval
• Management of interfaces between business departments, IT, IT security, and the external development partner under restrictive data access conditions
• Coordination with the CIO and executive management levels on data access, risk assessment, and approval decisions
• Preparation for the transition to production use

• Responsible for establishing and leading the Products & Portfolio division, consisting of three teams: UX/UR & BA, Projects & Portfolio, and Products & Innovations
• Currently managing three teams with 35 employees and 3 students
• Budget responsibility in the high single-digit million range
• Restructuring of the User Research, User Concept, and Business Analysis teams, including market and competitive analysis
• Development and implementation of a new portfolio management process (PMO), including new PPM software (Meisterplan)
• Establishment of project and program management standards
• Implementation of a new CRM and ERP system based on Microsoft Dynamics
• Market launch of tracking, security, and AI-based products (Live Shipment Tracking, Business Partner Check, TIMOCOM AI)
• Secured innovation funding for R&D activities in the single-digit million range

Independent Consultant

• Advisory focus: E-Commerce, Digitalization, Automation, Pricing, Assortment & Merchandising, Platform Strategy
• Industries: Retail & Consumer Goods
• Subject Matter Expert for leading management consultancies
• Ongoing executi...

• Led cross-functional teams to drive operational efficiency and strategic alignment across projects.
• Developed and implemented process improvements to enhance productivity and reduce costs.
• Oversaw project management initiatives, ensuring timely delivery and adherence to quality standards.
• Mentored junior staff, fostering professional development and enhancing team performance.
• Established a culture of continuous improvement by fostering open communication channels and empowering employees to voice their ideas.
• Managed budgets effectively to ensure optimal use of resources while maintaining financial stability.

• Supporting the DevOps team in Terraform-managed, multi-region AWS infrastructure to achieve environment parity.
• Developed end-to-end CI/CD pipelines using AWS CodePipeline, CodeBuild, and CodeDeploy, automating the build and deployment.
• Maintained pre- and post-deployment scripts to automate critical tasks such as database schema migrations and environment sanity checks.
• Implemented CI/CD flow specifically for hotfixes via separate Git branches, managing back-merge activities from feature branches to release branches to ensure code integrity through automated conflict resolution.
• Deployed a dedicated, lightweight sanity check application hosted cost-effectively on Azure Container Apps to run automated health and basic functional checks as a post-deployment activity triggered via pipeline.
• Investigated production incidents through code changes and AWS CloudWatch logs.
• Coordinated integration of Dynatrace APM and its APIs for monitoring purposes.
• Full stack QA strategist for a high-traffic e-commerce platform built on a layered architecture for the back-end testing of core platform services, especially the order management system in Zed and Glue layers.
• Managed automation activities, testing process, and refactoring practices.
• Responsible for framework migrations, setup, and training for new automation frameworks.
• Promoted a shift-left approach within the QA team and created the test concept.
• Participated in meetings with IT managers, business owners, product owners, and team members.
• Designed and implemented contract testing to validate API schema compatibility between the order management system and the Zed and Glue layers, reducing production-relevant breaking changes by approximately 3%.
• Led the migration to a multi-environment framework that enabled test execution across 4 country configurations from a single codebase.
• Integrated automated unit and functional tests directly into the GitLab CI/CD pipeline, reducing pipeline runtime by 32%.
• Coached and trained 5 QA engineers across Germany and Hungary in test automation, framework architecture, and best practices.
• Architected a layered backend test automation framework separating business logic, API request builders, and the database layer.
• Piloted AI-assisted testing with Playwright Agents, the Playwright MCP Server, and GitHub Copilot for automated test generation, execution, and self-healing Playwright scripts.

• Industries: Energy, Telecommunications, Manufacturing
• Transformation & Change: Supported complex IT and digital transformation programs as Scrum Master, Agile Coach, Change Manager and RTE Consultant at Siemens Energy (global SAFe rollout), E.ON (sales technology platform), Schneider Electric (S/4HANA transformation DACH) and Vodafone (Operational Excellence)
• Agile Roles: Scrum Master, Agile Coach, Product Owner, Business Analyst, RTE Consultant in cross-functional and scaled teams (SAFe, Scrum, Spotify Model)
• Procurement Excellence: Strategic purchasing consulting with a focus on cost optimization, supplier management, digitalization and organizational development, including building supplier scorecard models, AI-supported procurement approaches and process automation in purchasing
• Managed functional leadership of interdisciplinary project teams of up to 12 people in national and international settings
• Successful launch of several global ARTs at Siemens Energy with improved coordination across sites
• Increased change acceptance and established communication structures in the S/4HANA program at Schneider Electric
• Introduced agile methods, OKR frameworks and KPI dashboards at E.ON, increasing velocity and transparency
• Reduced purchasing costs through strategic sourcing and supplier optimization
• Implemented process innovations in close cooperation with IT and business teams

• Creation of complete bilingual (DE/EN) security and emergency documentation: Business Continuity Plan / Disaster Recovery Plan, Incident Response Plan v2.0 with four case-specific playbooks (PICERL), Access Control Policy, Vulnerability Management Policy, Business Resilience Programme, Risk Governance Plan
• Consolidation into an integrated emergency manual (12 chapters) with immediate-action checklists for six emergency scenarios, a prioritized action table and a formal approval structure
• Review and documentation of the applicability of NIS2 and HinSchG, including the legal justification for non-applicability

• -- ENGLISH Version (Deutsche Version unten) ---

Experience

• Ex-BCG Platinion: 14 years as Manager & Chief IT Architect, leading large-scale IT transformations in complex group structures
• 20+ years of C-level consulting across AI/IT strategy, enterprise architecture, IT organization, transformation, M&A due diligence, project recovery, and interim management
• IT leadership experience with cross-functional, intercultural teams of up to 100+ people
• Hands-on background in software engineering, IT architecture, and project management
• Fortune Europe 500 focus; numerous international projects; SME and start-up experience

Core services:

• IT strategy, enterprise architecture (EAM), target architectures and roadmaps
• PE/M&A/carve-out IT/tech due diligence, asset valuation, cost estimation
• GenAI transformation, process automation, and AI governance
• IT reorganization, target operating model (TOM), agile transformation
• IT governance, development and ITSM process optimization (BizDevOps, SAFe)
• Review and recovery of critical large-scale IT programs
• Planning and steering of transformation programs and IT project portfolios
• IT vendor and platform selection (RfI / RfP)
• Coaching & Interim management

Industries (selection): Insurance, financial services & banking, energy & utilities, telecommunications, retail & consumer goods, logistics, media, industry & engineering, healthcare, professional services

Projects (selection):

• M&A Buy-side IT/Tech Due Diligence of an Acquisition in the Energy Sector (Utility, Smart Home) — AI-augmented with Anthropic Claude

• AI Initiative for LLM-Based Optimisation and Automation of Sales and Billing Processes

• Interim management Enterprise Architecture & group target architecture/roadmap development (METRO)

• Reorganization: Design and introduction of agile IT target operating model at international wholesale group (METRO)

• Design and implementation of agile BizDevOps target operating model (E.ON Grid Solutions)

• Platform/vendor selection for renewal of core insurance solution of start-up (ELEMENT Insurance)

• Establishment of project assurance capability and review/recovery of critical transformation projects (ERGO)

• Enterprise architecture management and development of divisional/solution architectures (Deutsche Post DHL)

• Strategic pricing architecture decisions in digital sales application landscape (E.ON Energie)

• IT due diligence: Architecture evaluation and monetary valuation of IT assets (ProSiebenSAT.1 Media)

• Interim management of group-wide security/compliance programme (ERGO)

• Enabling an application landscape for different sales organizations and product structures (E.ON Energie)

• Realignment of business/IT strategy and InsurTech platform selection (RfI, RfP) (nexible, ERGO Digital Ventures)

• Stabilization/optimization of an agile/SAFe business/IT DevOps landscape transformation (Lufthansa AirPlus)

• Process optimization and design/management of digitization and robotics introduction in power plants (RWE Nuclear)

• BSS target architecture development for fixed/mobile networks convergence (Deutsche Telekom)

• Optimization of IT organization model and methodology in application development and testing (Deutsche Telekom)

• Evaluation of fulfillment of a general contractor agreement for run-off/migration of contract portfolios (ERGO)

• -- DEUTSCHE Version (English version above) ---

Experience

• Ex-BCG Platinion: 14 years of strategy and implementation of large-scale IT transformations in complex corporate structures (Manager & Chief IT Architect)
• 20+ years of C-level-adjacent IT consulting: IT strategy, enterprise architecture, IT organization, transformation, due diligence, project recovery, and interim management
• IT leadership responsibility for cross-functional, intercultural teams of up to 100+ people
• Solid hands-on experience in software development, IT architecture, and project management
• Focus on Fortune Europe 500, numerous international projects; SME and start-up experience

Industries: insurance · financial services & banking · energy · telecommunications · retail & consumer goods · industry & engineering · logistics · media · healthcare

Services (focus areas):

• IT strategy, enterprise architecture (EAM), IT landscape target visions and roadmaps
• M&A/carve-out IT/tech due diligence, asset valuation, and cost estimation
• GenAI transformation, process automation, and AI governance
• IT reorganization, target operating model (TOM), agile transformation
• IT governance, development and ITSM processes (BizDevOps, SAFe)
• Review and recovery of critical large-scale IT projects
• Planning/steering of transformation programs and IT project portfolios
• IT service provider/platform selection (RfI, RfP)
• IT project management (agile, classic, hybrid)
• Coaching & interim management

Projects (selection):

• M&A buyer-side IT/tech due diligence of an acquisition in the energy sector (utility, smart home) — AI-augmented with Anthropic Claude
• AI initiative for LLM-supported optimization and automation of sales and billing processes
• Interim management of Enterprise Architecture and development of group target architecture in wholesale (METRO)
• Reorganization: design and introduction of an agile IT target operating model (TOM) at an international wholesale group (METRO)
• IT reorganization: introduction of an agile BizDevOps target operating model (TOM) at an energy group (E.ON Grid Solutions)
• Platform selection / vendor selection for renewal of the core insurance solution of a B2B2C start-up (ELEMENT Insurance)
• Process optimization, digitalization, and introduction of robotics in power plants (RWE Nuclear)
• Assessment of fulfillment of a general contractor agreement for run-off/migration of life insurance portfolios (ERGO)
• Business/IT strategy and InsurTech platform selection for a digital insurer/start-up (nexible, ERGO Digital Ventures)
• Enabling an energy application landscape for multiple sales units (E.ON Energie)
• Strategic architecture decisions in price management of a digital sales application landscape at an energy group (E.ON Energie)
• Stabilization/optimization of an agile DevOps IT transformation in business travel and payment management (Lufthansa AirPlus)
• Interim management in a group-wide security and compliance program of a global insurer (ERGO)
• Building project assurance capability as well as review and optimization/recovery of critical IT projects in an insurance group (ERGO)
• Building enterprise architecture management and development of domain and solution architectures for a logistics group (Deutsche Post DHL)
• M&A IT due diligence – evaluation and valuation of IT assets in the media sector (ProSiebenSAT.1 Media)
• Development of BSS target architecture and roadmap for fixed/mobile convergence (Deutsche Telekom)
• Optimization of IT governance/organization and methodology in application development and testing at a telecommunications group (Deutsche Telekom)

• Strategic consulting for the Head of Brand on brand strategy and change processes
• Analysis of existing processes, resources, and interfaces within the team as well as with internal and external stakeholders
• Development and implementation of recommendations for action to improve processes and increase efficiency
• Project management and change management for the successful implementation of measures
• Management and selection of external service providers to ensure smooth execution
• Optimization of internal processes and interfaces through in-depth analysis and recommendations for action
• Effective acceleration of decision-making and management processes in brand management
• Successful management of external service providers and agencies for more efficient workflows and higher quality