KRITIS Experts in Germany

• Building a scalable nearshore IT developer hub (Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland) as an independent company using a BOT model (Build – Operate – Transfer)
• Identifying, selecting, and managing full-service agencies; introducing governance and control mechanisms including KPIs, SLAs, and regular service reviews
• Creating and reviewing data processing agreements and framework contracts in coordination with Legal & Compliance; integrating regulatory requirements (including KRITIS) into process design
• Advising on cloud-vs.-on-premise strategies, data storage, and authorization concepts; supporting procurement with tendering and vendor evaluations
• Change management and process harmonization between internal teams and nearshore partners; reporting to management board, CFO, and CIO

Result: Scalable IT developer hub with an audit-proof governance model, lower operating costs, and faster product development.

• Integration of highly regulated countries such as China and South Korea into a company-wide M365 tenant.

• Technical contact for integrating special requirements for the executive board and German subsidiaries that are subject to BaFin compliance requirements.

• Subproject management.

• Coordination of requirements within the overall architecture.

• Design of the use of DLP features from Microsoft Purview.

• Design of special access restrictions via Entra ID Conditional Access.

• Support in designing the provisioning of Teams teams and SharePoint sites with higher compliance requirements.

• Technical support for implementing information classification with sensitivity labels for SharePoint Online and Teams.

• Technical support for the subproject introducing CoPilot for M365.

• Skills: M365, Purview, DLP, Entra ID, Sensitivity Labels, CoPilot, Teams, SharePoint Online.

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.

• Responsible for infrastructure, operations, network and VoIP, security, quality assurance, as well as asset management and business continuity
• Planning and implementation of all requirements related to NIS 2.0
• Responsible for application development
• Company-wide implementation of SAP S/4Hana and leading development of new business processes, incl. cut-over planning
• Digital transformation and cultural transformation toward a "doer mentality"
• Realignment of infrastructure (hybrid)
• Restructuring of the organization with partial outsourcing
• Management of four direct reports with a total of 25 internal and external employees
• Budget responsibility of up to €25 million

Unified ITSM framework

• Definition of a company-wide ITSM target picture
• Introduction of a uniform service structure across all business units

SLA and OLA management

• Building a standardized SLA framework
• Definition of service classes (Business Critical, Standard, Low Priority)
• Introduction of OLAs between internal teams
• Building meaningful SLA reporting
• Definition of KPI and service dashboards for business units

Service portfolio management

• Definition of service descriptions
• If needed, preparing possible cost and service billing

Ticketing & processes

• Incident management
• Uniform ticket categories
• Standardized prioritization
• Escalation matrix
• Automations
• Self-service optimization

Request fulfillment

• Service catalog across all business units
• Approval workflows

Problem management

• Introduction of root cause analysis
• Known error database
• Problem review process

Complete asset management concept

• Hardware lifecycle management
• Software lifecycle management
• Leasing lifecycle
• Mobile device lifecycle
• Monitor lifecycle
• Phone lifecycle

Processes

• Procurement
• Goods receipt
• Inventory
• Assignment
• Return
• Disposal
• Leasing return Goal: single source of truth for all assets

CMDB design

• Definition of all configuration items:
• Workplace
• Notebooks
• Monitors
• Mobile phones
• Printers

Infrastructure

• Servers
• Firewalls
• Switches
• WLAN
• Storage
• Backup systems

Cloud

• Azure resources
• Microsoft 365
• SaaS services

Relationships

• User ↔ Asset
• Asset ↔ Service
• Service ↔ Infrastructure
• Location ↔ Asset
• Goal: make all service dependencies visible

Software asset & license management

• License management concept
• License balancing
• Compliance reporting
• Microsoft license management
• Adobe license management
• SaaS management
• Contract management
• Renewal management

Interfaces & automation Existing systems

• Workday
• Joiner
• Mover
• Leaver

TESMA

• Leasing data
• Contract data

Matrix42

• Asset synchronization
• User synchronization

Active Directory / Entra ID

• User management

Microsoft 365

• License assignment
• Group management

Dormakaba

• Access processes

• Lifecycle services

Monitoring platforms

• PRTG
• Palo Alto
• Cisco

Reporting & KPI framework

• Definition of a management dashboard
• KPIs
• Ticket volume
• SLA fulfillment
• MTTR
• First resolution rate
• Asset accuracy
• License compliance
• Change success rate
• Service availability
• Degree of automation

Network redesign support

• Governance
• Support of the network redesign from an ITSM point of view
• Definition of affected services
• Change management structure
• Communication concept

CMDB integration

• Recording of all network components
• Service mapping
• Dependency analysis

Validation of documentation and knowledge base articles

• Network documentation
• Operations documentation
• Standard changes

Monitoring & event management

• Target picture
• Central monitoring concept
• Event management process
• Alerting strategy
• Escalation model

Systems

• Cisco

• Palo Alto

• Fortinet

• Rubrik

• Veeam

• Matrix42

• Azure

• Microsoft 365 Automation

• Ticket creation from monitoring

• Escalations

• Standard actions

Audit, compliance & information security

• ISO 27001 consulting
• TISAX consulting
• NIS2 preparation - consulting
• Audit-ready processes
• Documentation structure
• Evidence tracking in Matrix42

Roadmap

• 12-month roadmap
• Prioritization of all measures
• Quick wins
• Medium-term projects
• Long-term target picture
• Documentation

• 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.

• 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

• Responsible for the solution architectures of the eGov solution "e-Akte" for KRITIS authorities of the state of NRW, tailored to the specific needs of the customers, as well as ensuring that these solutions can be operated efficiently and reliably
• Modeling the KRITIS IT architecture (cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity and development) using Archimate
• Ensuring IT governance, compliance, data protection, and the establishment of standards in line with the business strategy
• Managing service providers for the eAkte product nscale from Ceyonic
• EAM and LeanIX, documentation of IT systems, interfaces, technologies
• Solution architecture & stakeholder management, including business units & IT teams

• 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

In a Product Owner / Agile Delivery role in the GLOBUS team, I manage the backlog, prioritization, refinements, and release coordination along user value, technical feasibility, and operational safety. The focus is on collaboration between development, operations, support, and stakeholders around platform and backend services for telematics, vehicle/logbook data, and deployment/rollout processes.

• Product responsibility & prioritization: building and maintaining a clear backlog (epics/stories), continuous refinement, roadmap/release coordination, and transparency around value, risk, and dependencies.
• Interface & stakeholder management: translating business goals into deliverable increments, moderating alignment between teams/disciplines (including ops/support), and making decisions under time pressure without panic.
• Timeline & capacity: release/sprint planning with alignment of team capacity, dependencies, and operational windows (rollout/deployment).
• Quality & demos: preparing/facilitating reviews/demos, clarifying acceptance criteria with stakeholders, and integrating test activities into delivery.

Methods & tools: Scrum, Kanban, Jira, Confluence, product roadmapping, user story mapping, requirements engineering, requirements management, stakeholder management, KPI/service mindset, technical collaboration in an IoT/telematics environment.

AI-supported development and PM acceleration with agentic workflows; deep reinforcement learning; fully automated 24/7 setup.

• Infrastructure management with Puppet and Terraform for consistent environments
• Maintenance and adaptation of Terraform scripts for Azure cloud deployment
• Migration of database systems and services to the Azure cloud
• Introduction of GitOps with ArgoCD for fully automated deployments
• Adaptation and development of GitHub pipelines for CI/CD workflows
• Creation of Helm Charts for standardized deployments
• Migration of repositories from Bitbucket to GitHub
• Operation and performance optimization of an Oracle 19c grid cluster (RAC, Dataguard)
• Setup and management of MongoDB instances (on-premise and Azure Kubernetes)
• Setup of PostgreSQL clusters in on-premise and Azure Kubernetes environments
• Migration of services, master data, and stored procedures from Oracle to PostgreSQL
• Troubleshooting and performance tuning of complex data infrastructures
• Installation, configuration, and upgrade of Tableau in the productive BI environment
• Development of sanity checks to monitor business processes and application logic
• Adaptation of the backup and recovery strategy to new requirements
• Carrying out disaster recovery and point-in-time recovery
• Technologies used: Oracle 19c RAC Grid Dataguard, PostgreSQL 16, MongoDB, MySQL Cluster, Kubernetes (Azure), Tableau, Puppet, Terraform, ArgoCD, GitHub/Bitbucket, CheckMK, Prometheus, Grafana, Icinga2, Ubuntu/RHEL

• Innovation/pilot project eHealth Germany
• SaaS company in the media sector, NRW
• Secure software development lifecycle, NRW
• BSI IT baseline protection assessments for multiple clinics

• Management and optimization of a portfolio of about 100 projects (launches, in-field solutions, data & analytics, digital solutions, digital products)
• Optimization of the existing project standard (playbook) and alignment with the European and global organization (USA)
• Coaching project managers on setup, planning, cooperation with business, GDPR, GxP, data security and launches
• Preparing projects for works council information and project closeout communication
• Optimization of resource management (tracking, allocation, prioritization)
• Taking over individual project leads (off-/transboarding, event management, checking whether WhatsApp is allowed on a business smartphone)
• Supporting the hiring of external project managers
• Optimization of meeting structure, project controlling (KPIs), change and demand management
• Optimization of risk, issue, dependency and quality management and support during internal audits (GxP)
• Optimization of the portfolio steering tool (Smartsheet) on national, European and global level
• Design and implementation of a Business Value Complexity Scoring
• Building a strategic PMO with a sister department and optimizing cross-functional teams
• Reporting, communication and escalation at management level
• Leadership coaching for several future leaders (short-time assignment)
• Development of the concepts "PPM as a Service" and "Internal Customer Approach"
• Development and review of a concept "AI Data Governance" including roles and processes
• Selection and onboarding of the successor