Cloud Security Experts

• Established a cyber resilience framework for AI-accelerated threats in the Frontier AI Threat Endurance (FATE) program: capability assessments, maturity assessments and gap analyses covering cyber security, operational resilience, incident response, recovery and governance, followed by target concepts and improvement measures
• Supported action owners from specification through implementation: implementation roadmaps, decision papers, management presentations and governance reporting, as well as audit- and supervision-ready documentation; managed stakeholders from IT, Information Security, Risk Management, Operational Resilience, Business Continuity and the business units

Goal:

Protect customer domains from spoofing by establishing and securing DMARC compliance, and ensure secure and stable operation of the Exchange and Microsoft 365 environment while keeping legitimate mail flows running smoothly.

Responsibilities:

• Project management, including reporting, customer coordination and budget responsibility
• Set up and secure DMARC, including DKIM and SPF
• Ongoing analysis of DMARC reports to detect and resolve issues early
• Replace EWS connections before Microsoft's shutdown on 01.10.2026 by switching to Microsoft Graph
• Introduce sensitivity labels in Microsoft Purview to protect sensitive information
• Automate recurring administrative tasks with PowerShell
• 3rd Level Support and ongoing administration of Exchange Online and Exchange on-premises

Technologies: Exchange Online, Exchange Server (on-premises), Microsoft 365, Microsoft Graph API, EWS, Microsoft Purview / Sensitivity Labels, DMARC, DKIM, SPF, RUA-Reporting, PowerShell, HCL Notes

• Patch management and system hardening for Linux and Windows via AWS Systems Manager, including Maintenance Windows; image pipelines (AWS Image Builder), Ansible, and PowerShell DSC
• IT security & compliance: IAM/KMS/MFA, secrets management, Policy-as-Code (Checkov, tfsec, cfn-nag), AWS Config, CloudTrail, and Security Hub; infrastructure security audits, internal audits, penetration tests, and incident response exercises
• Analysis of cloud security reports and implementation of preventive measures; automated security and compliance tests; backup strategies using snapshots and S3 Glacier
• Administration of multiple AWS accounts (VPCs) with up to 2.500 Linux and Windows servers and hybrid networks
• Automation using Terraform, OpenTofu, CloudFormation, Ansible, and PowerShell DSC; CI/CD with GitLab CI and GitHub Actions
• Planning of rollouts, upgrades, and lifecycle management for key components; coordination with DevOps, security, and development teams; preparation of concepts and decision papers

Stabilization of an Azure/.NET landscape in live operation.

• Architecture, DevOps, and operational readiness; technical decisions under time pressure
• Azure DevOps, monitoring, ETL/ELT, cloud security, FinOps, and data-mesh-related topics

Technologies: Azure DevOps, .NET, CI/CD, monitoring, FinOps

• Managed Microsoft Cloud Accelerator Factory (CAF) programs for global enterprise customers, ensuring Azure cloud implementations aligned with security, governance, and compliance best practices, including ISO 27001-aligned controls and cloud security frameworks.
• Managed complex global enterprise transformation programs with strong focus on project delivery, financial governance, budget control, planning, risk management, and executive reporting, ensuring delivery within scope, timeline, and budget.
• Led the implementation of e-invoicing solutions for Nestlé, coordinating finance, IT, business stakeholders, and external providers to ensure successful integration, testing, rollout, and delivery of electronic invoicing processes.
• Managed an Oracle-to-PostgreSQL database migration, coordinating technical teams, application owners, testing activities, dependencies, risks, and cutover planning to ensure a controlled and successful transition.
• Led cross-functional programs involving finance and payment-related processes, enterprise platforms, and system integrations, with strong stakeholder management across business, IT, vendors, and senior leadership.
• Delivered transformation programs in FMCG environments, including Nestlé, managing complex international stakeholder structures, third-party providers, governance, RAID management, and business-critical dependencies.

• Industry: mechanical engineering, vehicle manufacturing
• Regulations: Data Act
• Project focus: data governance, legally compliant use of machine data, data platforms
• Assigned by: CFO, platform product owner

Successes/Results (early phase):

• Compliance support for the setup of an internal standardized data usage platform based on Databricks.
• Created the basis for the legally compliant and effective use of machine data, including:
• Technical: gap analysis and closing of gaps in the segmentation and maintenance of collected machine data.
• Technical: consideration of data flows from the platform to users and third parties.
• Organizational: drafting and finalizing the required data usage agreements.

Financial services provider, >10,000 employees

• Entra ID: App Registrations, Hybrid Identities, group and permission concepts, Conditional Access, MFA, RBAC, and PIM.
• Azure IaaS/PaaS, Networking, Security, Governance, Monitoring, and automation with Bicep and PowerShell.
• Consulting and technical support for internal cloud projects.

Real-time AWS threat detection using LLMs, UEBA, and vector analytics

• Built UEBA engine processing millions of CloudTrail/GuardDuty events to detect behavioural anomalies in real time.
• Integrated Amazon Bedrock LLMs for narrative threat analysis and structured automated incident summarisation.
• Designed vector embedding pipeline (MongoDB Atlas) for entity behaviour comparison and semantic anomaly detection.

Tech: Python, FastAPI, AWS, MongoDB Atlas, Amazon Bedrock, Pydantic, Motor (Async).

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Scope:

• Operation and configuration of the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, including network, storage, and security design.
• Implementation of centralized observability solutions (Prometheus, Grafana, alerting).
• Development of CI/CD pipelines, GitOps workflows, and automation frameworks.
• Training and enablement of operations and development teams.

Result: Accelerated service delivery, transparent operational metrics, and sustainable knowledge transfer.

• Automated Kubernetes deployments to over 400 customer target environments (Rancher/RKE2) using versioned Helm charts and Argo CD ApplicationSets for daily releases.
• Created self-service customer onboarding based on versioned runbooks, reducing the process from days to hours; coordinated with customer IT teams (AD/LDAP, SMB/DFS, network).
• Migrated selected services to AWS alongside the Open Telekom Cloud platform: provisioned VPC, EC2, and IAM roles with least-privilege policies using Terraform; operated workloads on EC2.
• Set up Keycloak realms and OIDC/SAML clients for product SSO, federated with customers’ Active Directory.
• Set up tenant-specific strongSwan IPsec sidecars on Kubernetes instead of a central transit VM, with keys in HashiCorp Vault: reduced connectivity costs by approximately 80%, with DFS indexing over the tunnel.
• Designed the high-availability migration of the Redis environment to managed OTC DCS; set up alerting and on-call rotations with incident.io by severity, and improved Grafana queries and indexing.

• 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

• Short description: Lead a group-wide project to establish standardized cloud governance for Microsoft Azure, including policies, security and compliance controls, automation, and cost and operations control while preserving the autonomy of decentralized business units within regulatory boundaries.

• Tasks and activities:

• Overall responsibility for the design, setup, and implementation of an enterprise-wide cloud governance structure (Azure), incl. target picture, roadmap, and operating model.

• Management of internal and external stakeholders (C-level, IT, Security, Compliance, Cloud Architecture, DevOps) incl. decision-making and escalation management.

• Planning and facilitation of workshops on cloud strategy, governance principles, and the design of areas such as Identity, Connectivity, and Platform Management.

• Definition, implementation, and rollout of cloud policies (Azure Policy / custom policies), security standards, and compliance requirements (including GDPR, ISO 27001, BSI C5).

• Building a cloud governance framework aligned with the Azure Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), incl. landing zone and guardrail concepts.

• Introduction of automation solutions for governance, security, and cost control (policy/control automation, IaC, CI/CD-based control mechanisms).

• Implementation of cloud security and compliance monitoring mechanisms as well as continuous improvement processes.

• Establishment and operationalization of FinOps in an enterprise environment (central and decentralized FinOps teams), incl. cost management strategies, reporting, and guardrails.

• Integration of governance policies into DevOps processes (e.g. CI/CD principles for security and compliance checks, GitLab Runner concept in spokes, GitLab CI/CD for CAF landing zones).

• Implementation of access concepts incl. RBAC design and "break glass" mechanisms (emergency access) as well as certificate automation (ACME / step-ca).

• Achievements:

• Created a unified, auditable governance and control set for Azure (policies, standards, compliance mapping) and thus laid the foundation for scalable cloud usage in a regulated environment.

• Established repeatable automation for governance, security, and cost control (IaC + CI/CD), reducing manual effort and implementation risks.

• Improved operational and decision-making capabilities across central and decentralized units (clearer roles, responsibilities, escalation paths, balance between autonomy and group requirements).

• Significantly increased workload compliance for lift-and-shift migrations.

• Technologies used:

• Microsoft Azure Policy, custom policies.

• Terraform, OpenTofu, Terragrunt.

• step-ca (ACME).

• Entra ID.

• Azure Firewall.

• Azure networking, hub-and-spoke architecture.

• Azure vWAN (evaluation).

• Azure Front Door, Azure Application Gateway.

• Azure ExpressRoute.

• Azure Key Vault.

• NetBox.

• GitLab (on-premises).

• Infrastructure, concepts used:

• Cloud shared responsibility model.

• Hub-and-spoke connectivity / central shared services (from a hub-spoke context).

• Central governance with decentralized delivery (business unit autonomy with guardrails).

• Methods used:

• Scrum.

• Stakeholder management (C-level to engineering).

• Cloud governance, Azure Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF).

• DevOps, CI/CD.

• Cost and FinOps approaches: tagging/chargeback models, budget/alert concepts, reserved instances/savings plans vs. on-demand scenarios, sensitivity analyses.

• RBAC, "break glass" concepts.

• ACME / certificate automation.

• GitLab Runner concept in spokes, GitLab CI/CD pipelines for CAF landing zones.

• Strategic consulting for securing business processes
• Consulting on the planning and implementation of IT and IT security projects
• Security and policy checks, process optimization, emergency planning
• Project management and interim management in IT infrastructure and information security

Overview of relevant projects:

• 2026: Analysis and assessment of an IT security architecture in terms of its existing design and the components in use. Development of proposed solutions to maximize security and reduce complexity. Development of a Zero Trust strategy and IT security architecture for DG Nexolution EG.
• 2026: Continuation of the projects listed below for Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems and Norddeutsche Landesbank.
• 2025: Consulting on a DLP concept for Digid GmbH.
• 2025: Advised a customer following a cybersecurity attack in which the IT infrastructure was compromised and the attacker gained M365 tenant admin rights. Investigation and recovery of the IT infrastructure. Preparation of recommendations to improve IT security.
• 2025: Continuation of the projects listed below for Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems and Norddeutsche Landesbank.
• 2024: Development of a DNS concept, including consulting on DNS strategy and technology, DNS design, DNS security, load balancing, reverse lookup zones and automation. Development of a DHCP concept, including consulting on DHCP design, a central DHCP management system and automation. Consulting on the operation of the relevant products, their operating processes, and updates to IT documentation and IT service descriptions for Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems.
• 2024: Assessment of the current state and evaluation of the network and security infrastructure established by the providers in terms of the overall architecture, including its design and components. Development of proposed solutions to improve current operations, maximize performance and security, and reduce complexity. Presentation of the findings to C-level management, including their causes and possible solutions, with the required decision documents. Development of a SASE concept based on a Zero Trust architecture for Norddeutsche Landesbank.
• 2024: Continuation of the projects listed below for Atlas GmbH and Deutsche Vermögensberatung AG.
• 2023: Consulting on addressing findings from an IT security assessment of the IT infrastructure; conducting proof-of-concepts for DDoS protection and Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) with Zscaler (ZIA, ZPA & ZDX); developing a new security architecture based on Zero Trust; redesigning a Cisco ISE implementation; and designing a DNS security solution to protect guests and financial advisors for Atlas GmbH / Deutsche Vermögensberatung AG.
• 2023: Continuation of the projects listed below for Digid GmbH, Vaillant Group GmbH (until 09/2023), the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (until 05/2023), and Union Investment IT-Services GmbH (until 07/2023).
• 2022: Development and review of white papers for infrastructure and security architectures; planning new network infrastructures for the German Aerospace Center.
• 2022: Development of a concept for the technical and process-based modernization of a disaster recovery plan for United Nations Volunteers.
• 2022: Development of a concept for moving measurement data to a cloud environment, implementing Network Access Control, and delivering an awareness training session for Digid GmbH.
• 2022: Development of a network segmentation concept for DZ Hyp AG.
• 2022: Development of a network segmentation concept for the Federal Employment Agency.
• 2021: Development of a new load balancer architecture for Bundeswehr Fuhrparkservices GmbH.
• 2021: Vulnerability scan and penetration test of a web frontend, including analysis and recommendations for remediation based on risk and likelihood of occurrence for customer ifi GmbH.
• 2021: Consulting, solution design and sub-project management for the introduction of a Network Access Control solution (certificate authentication and MAC address bypass) and macro-segmentation (area and zone concept based on dynamic endpoint assignment) for office and production IT for customer Vaillant Group GmbH.
• 2021: Upgrade and optimization of the LAN and WLAN infrastructure for customer United Nations Volunteers.
• 2021: Development of a target concept for modernizing the IT security infrastructure, including the DMZ (Cisco switches, firewalls, WSA, ESA, SMA), internet access, admin and management networks, and wireless LAN, including support for implementation for the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources.
• 2021: Development of a micro-segmentation concept based on Cisco DNA and SGT and Zero Trust for Union Investment IT-Services GmbH.
• 2021: Review and update of ISMS Level 3 policies and development of procedures for customer Software AG.
• 2021: Project management for the global Tec-Refresh project Meraki WLAN 2.0, coordination of the outsourcing of the LAN/WLAN infrastructure to a managed service provider, and development of a WLAN concept for automated guided vehicles for customer Heraeus Infosystems GmbH.
• 2021: Project management and technical support for a customer's “Transition of SIEM/SOC Services” project to a shared environment, and taking on the interim role of Head of Security Operations at customer Datagroup SE.
• 2021: Workshop on a future Mobile Device Management implementation for customer Allgeier Experts Go GmbH.
• 2021: Sub-project management for the introduction of a firewall rule management tool and recertification of NAC endpoints based on 802.1x and MAB for customer Union Investment IT-Services GmbH.
• 2020: Development of a network segmentation concept for two data centers based on Cisco and VMware for Aareon AG.
• Assessment and analysis of the current network architecture, including project initiation.
• Development of a concept for micro-segmentation in the data center and access network.
• 2020: Infrastructure and security architecture audit for customer Stuttgarter Versicherung AG.
• Analysis of the IT infrastructure and IT security architecture in terms of the configuration of network and security components. Additional review of contracts, process descriptions and manuals for completeness. Recommendations to improve infrastructure stability and operations. Development of a network segmentation concept and project management for implementing the measures identified in the analysis project.
• 2020: Consulting on setting up an ISMS-Light for customer Josera foodforplanet GmbH & Co. KG.
• 2020: Security architecture consulting for customer Datagroup SE.
• Development of a future IT infrastructure and IT security architecture.
• Assessment of the current IT architecture across all 23 companies.
• Recommendations for optimizing the IT infrastructure and a comparison of the traditional perimeter security concept with the Zero Trust model.
• Development of a security zone concept.
• Development of an IT infrastructure architecture in coordination with all companies.
• 2018 - 2019: Stream Lead in the cybersecurity program of Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
• Responsible for designing and implementing 9 projects in IT security infrastructure and user access management, as well as managing project leads and experts.
• Project area: Network Segmentation and Access-Control.
• Project area: Security Architecture.
• Project area: Privileged, Identity & Access Management.
• Project area: Simplify User Authentication (MFA).
• Project area: Mobile & Endpoint Security.
• Project area: OT-Security.
• Project area: E-enabled Aircraft.
• 2018: Security architecture consulting for customer Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
• Project management for the development, evaluation and management of the company-wide information security architecture.
• Development of a security strategy and roadmap to align the security architecture with the Zero Trust model.
• Evaluation of security solutions, services and tools available on the market.
• Definition of requirements for RfPs and evaluation of bids.
• Development, maintenance and monitoring of security architecture artifacts.
• Conducting security assessments of existing and new IT systems and security services.
• 2018: ISMS consulting for customer GLS IT Services GmbH.
• Consulting on the introduction and initial operation of an ISMS based on ISO27001.
• Auditing the IT environments of GLS subsidiaries.
• Analysis and assessment of IT security risks and identification of required measures.
• Development of proposed solutions in coordination with relevant stakeholders.
• Project management and handover of the ISMS for ongoing operations.
• 2016 - 2018: Security Pre-Sales Consultant for customer Cisco Systems GmbH.
• Strategic and solution consulting for major enterprise customers and financial and insurance customers across Germany on Cisco and Meraki security products and services, such as Firepower, WSA, ESA, Stealthwatch and ISE.
• 2017 - 2018: Design and setup of an ISMS for customer Verivox GmbH.
• Conducting various BIAs and GAP analyses.
• Development of security policies based on ISO 2700x.
• Took on the interim role of Information Security Officer.
• 2017: Development of an emergency plan for VPV Lebensversicherungs-AG.
• Review and update of the IT emergency handbook.
• 2016: Consulting and project management for the design of cloud and hosting services for customer Vodafone Group Services GmbH.
• Analysis and optimization of the sell-build-run process.
• Development of detailed-level designs for cloud products.

In my role as Senior Cloud DevOps Architect for BP, an oil and gas company, I had the mission to migrate the Electric Vehicle Charging platform of the EV Division from on-premises and Azure to AWS cloud, resulting in a hybrid multi-cloud, multi-tenant SaaS solution.

Deployment with Kubernetes for the application layer meant provisioning Kubernetes clusters managed by EKS and AKS, with a focus on integrating them into a multi-tenant environment. This integration was achieved by using Kubernetes namespaces and access controls to ensure data isolation and privacy enforcement.

In the database layer, we chose an RDS instance with PostgreSQL to support the backend infrastructure of our applications. Tenants shared the same RDS instance, but each had a dedicated schema.

To ingest near real-time data from physical charge points (CPOs), as IoT devices, via the OCPI protocol, we ran into significant delays with batch processing. As a result, we built a real-time streaming data pipeline using Apache Kafka, while prioritizing an event-driven architecture.

Led collaboration across multiple internal teams, external vendors, cloud providers, and on-site partners to integrate over five systems into a unified solution.

Achievements:

• Successfully designed and implemented hybrid multi-cloud solutions, integrating multiple cloud platforms (AWS, Azure) with on-premises infrastructure, using Site-to-Site VPNs, Firewalls, and Load Balancing.
• Led the migration of on-premises infrastructure to multi-cloud, multi-tenant infrastructure, resulting in 30% faster processing times.
• Migrated workloads from VMware and Hyper-V environments to cloud-based VMs, leveraging cloud-native services to optimize performance, cost efficiency, and scalability.
• Designed a multi-tenant Kubernetes platform leveraging the Kubernetes ecosystem, using Karpenter for dynamic EC2 node provisioning, KEDA for event-driven pod autoscaling (e.g., Kafka message lag), and Rancher for centralized monitoring of multiple clusters (EKS, AKS, or on-prem K8s), replacing Microsoft-centric Azure Arc management service.
• Designed and implemented Python-based FastAPI microservices as part of the EV core-backend on AWS EKS application layer, powering data ingestion and customer analytics pipelines.
• Developed asynchronous, event-driven APIs (Python-FastAPI) for real-time integration with CPOs, supporting OCPI 2.3 and OICP protocols.
• Designed and implemented a secure, production-grade Azure Databricks platform using Terraform, ensuring scalability and cost efficiency.
• Migrated on-premises ERP to a hybrid Dynamics 365 architecture with ERP hosted locally and CRM running in Azure, integrated via Azure Arc.
• Automated CI/CD pipelines for Databricks notebooks and jobs using GitHub Actions & Databricks CLI, reducing deployment time. Reduced infrastructure provisioning time by 70% by automating cloud resource deployment with GitOps.
• Ensured compliance with internal audit and data governance standards (GDPR) through OAuth2/OIDC-based authentication and fine-grained role-based access controls.
• Developed a Zero Trust security model, enforcing least-privilege access and microsegmentation, enhancing security posture and compliance with GDPR and NIST.
• Built interactive analytics dashboards in Amazon QuickSight, integrating data from S3 and Redshift to deliver real-time business insights and visualizations with embedded access for multi-tenant users.
• Led cloud security assessments and full-lifecycle cybersecurity integration during M&A, covering AWS, Azure, IAM (Entra ID), and data protection, while aligning security posture with NIST, ISO 27001, and GDPR across hybrid and cloud-native environments.
• Reduced cloud costs by 64% for a client's dev environment by implementing automated start/stop schedules for EC2 and RDS instances via AWS CDK with EventBridge Scheduler or AWS Systems Manager.

Tech stack:

• Infrastructure as Code: Terraform, AWS CDK, Ansible.
• Containers: Kubernetes on EKS, AKS, Docker.
• Streaming Data Processing: Kafka to Confluent Cloud, after AWS MSK.
• Frontend: TypeScript, React, NextJS, Hooks, Styled Components.
• Backend: Python with FastAPI, also Node.js with NestJS.
• Database: Aurora on PostgreSQL with TypeORM, RDS on SQL Server, Azure Databricks full setup and administration, ETL Pipelines.
• CI/CD and GitOps: GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, ArgoCD.
• Monitoring and Observability: Prometheus and Grafana.
• Virtualization: Hyper-V, VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure Migrate.
• ERP Systems: Odoo, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central on Azure, integrated with Azure Arc.
• Networking: Site-to-Site VPNs, AWS Direct Connect, Azure ExpressRoute, Firewalls (AWS Network Firewall, Azure Firewall).
• Security: IAM, NIST Framework, Zero Trust Security, AWS WAF, AWS Shield, GuardDuty.