DORA Experts in Germany

• 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.

• Head of the group-wide, international, and cross-functional IT Governance & IAM department within the central IT division of a large French-German private banking group. Disciplinary management of around 30 employees at five different locations within the group (Frankfurt, Paris, Tunis, Saarbrücken, Düsseldorf). Head of IT committees and key role in direct communication with management, the supervisory board, external stakeholders, and regulators.
• Definition and establishment of a state-of-the-art IT strategy process and related IT governance structures for the group's IT department with more than 600 employees (testified by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority and the ACPR) and successful process run.
• Establishment of a new future-oriented process framework for IT and necessary governance structures (process squads) for the continuous improvement of IT processes with regard to new regulatory requirements (including DORA, EU AI Act, etc.).
• Establishment of stringent processes to close a historical backlog of findings (> 100 IT findings, 40 overdue findings in 2022) from internal and external auditors (WP, ACPR, BaFin). Successful reduction of stock of overdue findings to 0 at the end of 2025.
• Supporting more than 20 IT audits per year and establishment of regulatory monitoring processes. Introduction of ServiceNow to revolutionize regulatory change and IT compliance processes with advanced AI functionalities.
• Realignment of IT control processes in conjunction with the newly established ICT risk function under DORA and the three lines of defense concept using the TopEase GRC solution.
• Reduction of the application landscape, by systematically analysing the purpose with application and business owners, identifying duplicates while implementing a One-Tool Strategy throughout the group. Successful reduction of one third of the application landscape within the CMDB.
• Onboarding of all group applications into One Identity's group-wide IAM solution, as well as operation and further development of the solution in connection with segregation of duties (SoD), role-based access management (RBAC), etc.

• Capturing the current processes Incident Management, IT Service Request Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Service Configuration Management (including CMDB)
• Carrying out maturity assessments for these processes based on the ITIL® 4 Maturity Model
• Analyzing the different service value streams based on the ITIL® 4 value stream model
• Agreeing maturity levels for the processes being reviewed
• Developing and approving a roadmap to achieve and measure the respective maturity levels
• Presenting the approach, including milestones, to management for approval
• Managing external service providers in 1st level support

2nd LoD/Change the Bank (CtB)

• CtB: External consultant and workstream lead for rectifying findings by BaFin following a special IT audit in the 2nd LoD, management of the work package for revising the ICT Risk Management & ICT Asset Classification in accordance with DORA Chapter 2, the processes for structural analysis, protection requirements, and control assessments (4 FTEs).

Industry: Publishing, media Project management for the concept of a RAG-based archive access solution: a secure on-prem or hybrid compute architecture for LLM and embedding operations, pipeline for transcription and automatic tagging, semantic search across audio and video archives. Use case evaluation and make-or-buy together with editorial team, archive, and legal department, taking into account copyright, broadcasting law, and the AI Act. Differentiator: practical LLM infrastructure experience from two own productive platforms combined with C-level program management in regulated industries.

• Delivery of various end-customer projects in server and network infrastructure on time, in quality, and within budget.
• Project 1: Firewall renewal, replacement of an ASA firewall with a Fortinet firewall at an automotive supplier.
• Project 2: Migration of file services from dedicated servers at 5 branch locations into a central managed file service, including DHCP, directory, and print services, as well as decommissioning of the old domain controllers.
• Project 3: Renewal of the network infrastructure at the headquarters and branch locations of a logistics company and transition of the LAN, WLAN, and firewall environments into a managed network service.
• Project 4: Network renewal, replacement of the core and access switches at the headquarters of a medical technology company and transition into a managed network service.
• Project 5: Firewall renewal, replacement of an ASA firewall with a Fortinet firewall for a city.
• Environment: ASA and Fortinet firewalls, Cisco network components, ITSM Heat/Ivanti, Confluence.

• Regulated environment within a German banking group (approx. 8,500 employees, hybrid cloud strategy).

• Responsible for operating, provisioning, and continuously securing business-critical platforms – including a GenAI chat application, a big data/AI platform, and data science workspaces based on Azure Virtual Desktops and VMs. Ownership of Azure DevOps projects for ShaiHulud and React2Shell, as well as BSI alerts – Security Operations improvements across the SDLC.

• Deployment responsibility for the GenAI chat application, big data/AI platform (BDAI), and data science workspaces (AVD/VM-based) in the respective landing zones.

• Deployment & release management: end-to-end responsibility for deploying portal and service applications across multiple Azure landing zones, including technical approvals, compliance with development team deployment guidelines, and ensuring ITIL-based change and release processes via ServiceNow.

• Azure landing zones & network architecture: design, provisioning, and operation of Azure landing zones for 3-tier web applications with enhanced network segmentation, VNet peering, hub-and-spoke architectures, private endpoints, and firewall integration across separate subscriptions and tenants.

• Azure DevOps governance & operations: ownership of the Azure DevOps organization, including projects, repositories, and CI/CD pipelines; implementation of governance requirements such as branch policies, approval gates, permission models, and audit-ready operating structures.

• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform): design, implementation, and operation of a modular Terraform architecture for standardized cloud infrastructure deployment, including state management, provider versioning, reusability, and policy-as-code approaches.

• CI/CD pipeline engineering: design, operation, and optimization of complex YAML-based CI/CD pipelines with multi-stage deployments, template standardization, self-hosted agents, integrated secret management, and automated quality and security checks.

• Git migration & platform consolidation: planning and execution of repository and pipeline migration from Azure DevOps to GitLab CI/CD, including automated scripts, full Git history transfer, pipeline porting, and platform consolidation.

• Container & platform operations (AKS): operation and security assessment of containerized workloads on Azure Kubernetes Service, centralization of on-premises container registries for ACR.

• OpenShift (OCP) security reviews: security assessment of code baselines, build pipelines, and deployment processes for on-premises OpenShift clusters with critical applications, and derivation of specific hardening recommendations.

• Shift-left security & DevSecOps transformation: introduction of a company-wide shift-left approach for early security integration in development and deployment processes, enabling developers to perform self-led security checks and sustainably reduce vulnerabilities before production (IDE integrations, pre-commit hooks, local scanners).

• Software supply chain security: analysis and mitigation of supply chain risks in NPM- and Yarn-based applications through dependency audits, CI/CD pipeline hardening, token rotation, and restriction of risky build and lifecycle mechanisms.

• Frontend & framework security (React / Next.js): security assessment and coordination of critical vulnerability remediation across platform applications and web frameworks, including coordination and complementary technical mitigations with all teams following BSI alerts.

• Software composition analysis (SCA): introduction and operation of automated vulnerability scans for container images, pipelines/artifacts, and third-party dependencies, including SBOM exports within CI/CD pipelines.

• SAST/DAST integration: design and piloting of static and dynamic application security tests in close collaboration with security architecture and development teams, for continuous improvement of code and runtime security, and establishing operational acceptance tests.

• Artifact & registry consolidation: analysis and consolidation of all package and container repositories for service applications and AKS workloads, aiming for a centralized, secured registry strategy with centralized vulnerability scanning and governance.

• Dependency-Track & SBOM strategy: advising the compliance board on introducing a central SBOM and vulnerability management platform to increase enterprise-wide dependency transparency and accelerate CVE response capability.

• CI/CD pipeline hardening: security analysis and cleanup of the existing pipeline landscape by removing unused pipelines, improving secrets hygiene, implementing least-privilege principles, and isolating build agent environments.

• Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) optimization: analysis and tuning of existing Azure WAF rules (OWASP Top 10 Core Rule Set, DSR/SDC, custom rules) to defend against known vulnerabilities and exploit patterns, including reducing false positives and improving threat detection.

• Documentation & stakeholder communication: creating and maintaining technical documentation, runbooks, and architecture overviews in Jira and Confluence, as well as active knowledge transfer between operations, development, security, and compliance stakeholders.

Project, Strategic Consulting – building the Data Strategy and Data Governance Policy for the German branch, client (private bank Julius Bär, headquarters Zurich), March 2026 – present

• Design and negotiation of the data strategy with key stakeholders, including obtaining board sign-off (strategic consulting) – in this context, regulatory advice on data regulations in the EU and specifically for Germany. The data strategy includes: Data Lifecycle Management: data capture, data storage, data usage, data retention policy, data quality incident management
• Definition of milestones and technical feasibility for implementing TOM for the data strategy, data quality checks, metrics, and a metadata inventory to ensure the bank’s compliance with DORA, BCBS239, and MaRisk requirements.

Core project data change, client: (ING Bank, Frankfurt am Main), March – December 2025

• Concept development and solution design for new end-to-end processes including technical interfaces
• Definition of synchronization logic and data flows between legacy and target systems (decommissioning of legacy systems)
• Analysis and validation of data models
• Stakeholder communication with product owners, feature engineers, UX designers, and operational teams for decision-making
• Analytics and impact assessments, e.g. to assess downstream effects and regulatory requirements
• Documentation and comments on technical and business requirements to support implementation in agile squads

Project digitalization of a user group, client: (ING Bank, Frankfurt am Main), as Interim Product Owner, Jan 2025 – present

• Co-shaping key decisions on data architecture and process logic in the context of historized data and user login functionality
• Development of business solution concepts for migration to the target system, including system integration and data flows
• Support with analytics and impact analyses, especially regarding the ability to provide information to law enforcement authorities
• Active coordination with stakeholders from different squads to support decision-making and ensure regulatory requirements are met
• Creation of test scenarios for operational teams and backend systems in the area of API management using Postman and Bruno.

• Situation: Increasing demand for privacy-compliant AI solutions for clients in the KRITIS and mid-market sector that need to analyze sensitive media content (audio, video, documents) without sending data to public cloud LLMs.

• Task: Design, deployment, and secure operation of a fully self-hosted AI infrastructure including a custom-built digital management platform for automated media analysis.

• Action: Architected and implemented a multi-tier platform on hardened Proxmox infrastructure with frontend (Nuxt 3, Vue 3, TypeScript, Tailwind 4), backend (Laravel 13, PHP 8.4, Sanctum), data storage (PostgreSQL 16, MongoDB 7), caching/queuing (Redis 7, Laravel Queue), AI workers (Python 3.11, Whisper, DeepFace, Librosa), scheduling (Laravel Scheduler/Cron), and local LLMs (Gemma, DeepSeek, Qwen, Mistral, LLaMA, Phi) via OpenWebUI with segmented network access, API hardening, and audit logging following BSI recommendations.

• Result: Fully GDPR-compliant, on-premises AI platform with zero data leakage to third parties.

• Task: Overall responsibility as an external Head of Cyber Security / CISO-as-a-Service for the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of ISMS according to ISO 27001, BSI IT-Grundschutz, and NIS2.

• Action: Built and managed Cyber Defense Centers (CDC) with SOC operations, integrated SIEM solutions (Splunk, Graylog), established risk-based vulnerability management (Qualys, Nessus, OpenVAS), and conducted regular infrastructure, application, and physical penetration tests.

• Result: Audit-ready ISMS for multiple clients and a 60% reduction in critical vulnerabilities within 90 days.

• Task: Design and execution of NIS2 assessments and operational roll-out plans for KRITIS operators.

• Action: Developed an online assessment tool for automated identification of individual weakness profiles, implemented ISMS optimizations, penetration testing, awareness programs, GRC suite deployment, and delivered C-level presentations.

• Result: Accelerated the consulting process by 50% and successfully prepared multiple clients for NIS2 compliance.

• Task: Incident commander for crisis response, forensics, and business recovery in ransomware attacks and APT campaigns.

• Action: Coordinated with state and federal police (LKA, BKA), performed forensic analysis (OSForensics, Wireshark, Kali Linux), executed disaster recovery and BCM strategies, and developed BTC extortion response strategies.

• Result: 100% recovery rate within defined RTO windows and sustainable post-incident security architectures.

• Action: Planned, built, and operated a hardened multi-VM infrastructure (Proxmox, 15+ VMs) with web and mail servers, Graylog, OPNsense firewalls, CRM/ERP and LLM instances, network segmentation, DDoS mitigation, automated patch management, and backup strategies.

• Result: >99.5% uptime over 20+ years and zero compromises.

• Action: Designed coordinated phishing campaigns with five levels of difficulty, developed e-trainings and webinars in a PDCA cycle, and led red and blue teams.

• Result: Phishing click rate reduced from 35% to under 5% within three campaign cycles.

Support for Internal Audit:

Conducting an audit of the data protection officer and data protection management:

• Preparing an audit program based on the audit field concept
• Requesting the necessary audit documentation
• Carrying out control testing based on the audit program with the following focus:
• Reviewing the relevant PPS processes
• Reviewing the data protection mission statement, data protection policy, and data protection management concept
• Conducting audit interviews with the data protection officer
• Preparing the audit documentation
• Training a junior auditor in the methodology of Internal Audit
• Coordinating the audit documentation with the head of audit

Architected and maintained data products for renewable energy operations, covering wind turbine, grid-meter, and weather data. Built scalable ETL/ELT pipelines in Azure Databricks using Delta Lake (bronze/silver/gold layers) and processed data in various formats, including structured and semi-structured data. Contributed to a data quality framework supporting table and column documentation, outlier detection, and completeness metrics across all datasets within a data product. In addition, implemented a DORA KPI Databricks dashboard used across all data products. Optimized CI/CD processes in Azure DevOps to streamline deployment across development, test, and production environments.

Technology stack: Azure Databricks, PySpark, SQL, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Azure Data Lake, APIs, Dremio, Azure DevOps, YAML, Git, Databricks Workflows, Application Insights, Terraform, OpenAI API, Codex, LLM-assisted workflows

Compliance department setup & DORA operationalization

• Setup of a complete compliance organization according to DORA
• Development and operationalization of SfO
• Use of AI agents for automation:
• Evaluation of due diligence questionnaires including risk classification
• AI-supported contract analysis (DORA/MaRisk compliance)
• Monitoring of external data sources (cyber incidents, news feeds)
• Setup of a decentralized risk and action register
• Creation of gap analyses and derivation of actions
• Setup and maintenance of the outsourcing information register
• Use of own TPRM frameworks, checklists and process models

Compliance department setup & DORA operationalization

• Setup of a complete compliance organization according to DORA
• Development and operationalization of SfO
• Use of AI agents for automation:
• Evaluation of due diligence questionnaires including risk classification
• AI-supported contract analysis (DORA/MaRisk compliance)
• Monitoring of external data sources (cyber incidents, news feeds)
• Setup of a decentralized risk and action register
• Creation of gap analyses and derivation of actions
• Setup and maintenance of the outsourcing information register
• Use of own TPRM frameworks, checklists and process models
• Project controlling - presentation and structured measurement of achieved project goals within management reporting.

• 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 handbook (12 chapters) with immediate checklists for six emergency scenarios, a prioritized action table, and a formal approval structure
• Review of a penetration test report (Greenbone) with complete remediation of all findings and formal risk acceptance of a residual risk with documented compensating control
• Review and documentation of NIS2 and HinSchG applicability, including the legal reasoning for non-applicability

• Drove two cross-functional engineering teams within the SAFe framework to deliver backend and integration solutions for Visa’s Terminal Management and Cybersource Onboarding platforms
• Served as Program Coach for ten teams within the Platform Services organization, advancing Agile maturity, delivery alignment, and a culture of continuous improvement
• Orchestrated Agile ceremonies including Product Manager syncs, metrics reviews, inspect-and-adapt sessions, system demos, and leadership workshops to strengthen transparency, collaboration, and delivery performance
• Championed the rollout of the Re-imagine Work@Visa scaled delivery framework within the Agile Transformation Team, improving collaboration and delivery predictability
• Increased release frequency 18× per quarter by synchronizing distributed teams and developing a comprehensive release guide
• Partnered with the Release Manager to standardize deployments across Visa Data Center, AWS, and Mobile platforms
• Led teams to close all security findings and embed remediation into BAU, achieving zero open issues by mid-2024
• Directed the Security Findings Program across the portfolio, ensuring visibility, accountability, and progress tracking
• Supported the roll out of the OKR framework and led quarterly reviews to align execution with business goals
• Strengthened communication across distributed teams, removed blockers, and advocated for continuous improvement and automation
• Delivered on demand workshops for teams with raising maturity and adoption of best practices
• Co-founded a Center of Excellence and Agile Community of Practice to promote continuous learning and alignment
• Partnered with SRE and InfoSec teams on multi-region rollout and security initiatives to enhance reliability and compliance