COBOL Experts in Germany

• Engaged within the Information and Security Management division for a Proof of Concept (PoC) project focused on developing a Client Security Portal.
• Managed project resources across the UK, India, and Germany.
• Architected and deployed the PoC solution leveraging a modern Java stack, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) with Kubernetes, and Active Directory (Entra ID) for authentication.
• Implemented OAuth 2.0 for authorization.
• Ensured DORA alignment according to Deutsche Bank security rules and regulatory preparation.

• 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

• Focus on optimizing and further developing the internal customer EBICS application
• Functional and technical consulting for Aareal First Financial Solutions AG on EBICS standard products and applications in the areas of operations and further development, as well as project-related communication with external development partners and the product manufacturer to implement the corresponding technical optimizations
• As the functional coordinator, providing advice on content-related and regulatory requirements as well as technical prerequisites and requirements, and bringing these together at the functional level
• Consulting on the use of EBICS formats
• Reviewing the current EBICS standard for optimization and further development potential
• Analyzing the current state to identify development potential and deriving appropriate recommendations for action while considering regulatory requirements
• Conducting EBICS tests throughout the project
• Functional responsibility for requirements management and, in this context, recording and documenting requirements for such tests
• Designing a functional and sustainable test management system
• Conducting and evaluating tests
• Consulting on sustainable quality assurance and audits
• Project language: German and English
• Tools/Methods: MS Project, MS Office, MS Visio, TestRail, Confluence, Jira, Business Logics Bankkrecher, Business Logics Test Data Generator, Business Logics Banking Tool, Business Logics Test System, DBEAVER, Squirrel, Unix Virtual Machines, WinSCP, Kitty, Putty, various Aareal Bank products, Online Banking Portal, Aareal Sign, core banking system, SAP Blue Eagle, SAP RE-FX, Aareon Wodis Sigma, Haufe Real Estate Wowinex, GAP Group Immotion, UTS Karthago, SAP IS-U/Waste, SIV kVASy, various EBICS clients

• Functional management and further development of a team of 28 IT employees (internal & external) in the areas of HelpDesk / HelpLine, RHEL (Red Hat), MUREX (trading system & applications), SAP basic operations
• Management of external service providers (including FI-TS for SAP basic operations)
• Personnel, resource and budget planning for the IT department and projects
• Introduction and establishment of regular communication formats (regular meetings, team and cross-departmental meetings)
• Ensuring application operations in a hybrid environment (Windows / Linux with database and web/application servers)
• Support for transformation projects to modernize the application landscape (e.g. DevOps approaches)
• Building and introducing digital IT procurement for hardware & software (e.g. with DELL)
• Development and management of the „IT Operations DOS" department based on the company strategy
• Preparation of management reports & decision papers on IT projects, optimization potential and automation opportunities
• Representing the department in Rentenbank committees and ensuring regulatory compliance (BaFin §44, DSGVO, BSI, MaRisk)

• Restructuring of the network architecture/topology, followed by installation, setup and testing of the network at a small business.
• Resolution of server (permissions and roles) and connection problems (WAN, (V)LAN, WLAN).
• Infrastructure support and maintenance.
• Creation of documents such as manuals, architecture documents and design documents.
• Revision of manuals and technical documents, as well as creation of VBA macros.
• Use of AI and basic prompting, as well as formulation of AI requests.
• Adjustment of workflows due to legal requirements and optimization of existing workflows.
• Delivery of courses and training for adaptations, new features and changed workflows.
• Modeling basis: BPMN.
• System environment: MS Office 2019/365, Win10/11, Teams, Netgear (Switch), QNAP, Synology (NAS), Linux (Ubuntu).

Built an international e-commerce platform for a multi-vendor marketplace for digital assets from scratch. Designed and operated cloud native architectures at enterprise scale.

• Designed and operated a highly scalable microservice and serverless architecture
• Built the complete cloud infrastructure with Terraform + AWS CDK in AWS
• Provisioned ECS/EKS clusters (Fargate), Application Load Balancers (reverse proxy), and Lambda functions
• Observability & tracing with CloudWatch, DataDog, Prometheus, and Grafana
• End-to-end setup with DataDog (formerly AWS CloudWatch), Prometheus, and custom Grafana dashboards
• Integration of advanced metrics (including ORM mapper) and distributed tracing with Jaeger
• Robust backup and disaster recovery strategies
• RDS Postgres backups and hourly snapshots
• Read-only, asynchronously synchronized replicas with automated master failover in emergencies
• Minute-level rollback capability through versioned Docker images on ECS and Git-based CI/CD pipelines
• Created CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions for automated multi-stage deployments (Dev, Testing, Prod)
• Integrated Stripe for international payment processing
• Built a marketplace payment system with multiple parties and payout routines
• Used Algolia for high-performance real-time search of digital assets on the platform
• Federation of services with GraphQL and Hasura
• Later migration to GraphQL Mesh
• Test Driven Development (TDD) - unit, integration, and E2E testing with Jest, Vitest, and Playwright
• Used Next.js / React for modern frontend applications in the nx monorepo
• Enterprise security architecture & access control
• Integration of JWT tokens with Auth0, OAuth, OIDC, IP guards, BOLA protection, and secret vaults
• Authorization concepts with RBAC, ABAC, and native Postgres Row-Level Security (RLS)
• Built internal microfrontends with Retool for fast prototyping and operational business processes

Technologies: ABAC, AWS CDK, AWS CloudWatch, AWS ECS, AWS EKS, AWS Fargate, AWS RDS, AWS S3, Algolia, Auth0, DataDog, Docker, GitHub Actions, Grafana, GraphQL, GraphQL Mesh, Hasura, JWT, Jaeger, Java, JavaScript, Jest, Kotlin, Kubernetes, Monorepo, Next.js, OIDC, Playwright, Postgres, Postgres RLS, Prometheus, RBAC, Redis, Retool, Serverless, Stripe, Terraform, TypeScript, Vitest

I continuously expand my expertise in AI and automation. I work with ChatGPT, OpenAI, Manus, Gemini, MS CoPilot, APIs, LangChain, Hugging Face, Manus, TensorFlow, and Auto-GPT, as well as Python-based ML frameworks and MLOps tools, to intelligently transform traditional software development, analysis, and testing processes.

• Worked for several M&A projects (Eire, Sunshine C, Coral) in the role of IT project manager and cross-functional technical manager / integration manager.
• Preparation and maintenance of project charters, project change requests and project plans.
• Weekly project status report.
• Preparation of decision papers and steering committee slidedecks.
• Risk & issue management.
• Tracking and managing activities, dependencies and deliverables across all functional IT domains.
• Data migration (planning and execution).

• Consulting, training and coaching in the financial sector on strategy, organization and IT topics

• MorgenFund: Advising the operator of a fund platform on software selection for a sub-ledger "Cash Accounts" based on virtual IBANs (VIBAN)

• Structuring requirements, market screening, preparing RfIs, communicating with vendors and conducting the selection process

• UniCredit/HypoVereinsbank: Workstream Lead "Booking and Customer Reporting" in the payment transformation project "PULS"

• Business analysis, preparing business requirements and coordinating the solution items as part of the functional specification with the bank's IT service providers

• Business analysis of SEPA CT and SWIFT MX (.camt-, .pain- and .pacs- formats), change management, team leadership for a virtual team of fifteen line experts and stakeholder management

• equensWorldline Germany: Program management for three projects of the SWIFT Service Bureau (CBPR+, ESMIG and Euro1Step1 migration) as part of the SWIFT MX migration

• Managing individual project leads with regard to cross-project goals and requirements; reporting to internal and external committees and stakeholders; coordination with dependent projects and programs

• Project management/PMO: Interim project management, deputizing for project leads, resource planning, budget and cost management, general PMO activities

• Gathering information
• Creating rollout wave concepts
• Coordinating employees
• Monitoring and managing activities
• Project management including analysis and reporting to the board
• Creating instructions and specifications
• Training floorwalkers
• Supporting the rollout on site
• VIP support
• Introducing SharePoint

Topics:

• Further development of the CRM system NKAM and technical separation of “direct” and “indirect” sales
• Redesign of the discount management area and outsourcing to another system.
• Designing numerous improvements on the wholesale side to reduce manual effort down to the level of user stories.

• Management of IT with 10 employees, including budget and personnel responsibility.
• Harmonization of the Navision systems in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
• Connection of the ERP systems in Switzerland, Austria and Italy to the central Microsoft Power BI systems in Germany.
• Rollout of a new firewall at 10 locations in D, CH and A.
• Evaluation of a new DMS.
• Migration to Windows 10 / 11.
• Transformation of 9 countries into ONE Europe.
• Start of NIS2 implementation in 5 European countries.

• -- 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)

Migration from Exchange 2016 to Exchange 2019 and Exchange Online, as well as the introduction of a backup solution and an archiving solution. The goal was to securely modernize the email and archiving infrastructure in compliance with legal requirements and ensure high performance.

Responsibilities as IT PROJECT MANAGER: Overall project management and operational coordination / Ensuring compliance with budget and resource limits / Ensuring project objectives are met / Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and policies, including ISMS, ITIL, and data protection requirements / Preparing and presenting management reports for the project sponsor and steering committee / Coordinating cross-functional teams across Exchange, network, data protection, and IT security / Planning and carrying out the migration from Exchange 2016 to Exchange 2019 / Planning and carrying out the migration from Exchange 2019 to Exchange Online / Planning and introducing a backup solution for Exchange Online / Coordinating an EU-wide tender for an archiving solution, including market research with potential suppliers / Planning and introducing an archiving solution for Exchange Online / Coordinating and preparing the BAS notices required for the project / Coordinating and aligning with stakeholders (for example, business units, external service providers, and suppliers) to define requirements and deliver solutions

Technical environment: MS Exchange 2016, MS Exchange 2019, MS Exchange Online, MSOffice, MS Planner, MS Powerpoint, MS Project, MS Teams, CodeTwo, Hornet Security