Microsoft Excel Expert in Germany

Agile Transformation: introducing agile principles and transforming traditional IT departments into Scrum and Kanban teams

IT Operating Model: redesigning the IT organization and introducing modern delivery structures and roles

Flight Levels: building up Flight Levels practices within IT to align strategy, coordination and operational execution

Leadership & Coaching: recruiting Agile Coaches and coaching Scrum Masters and IT leaders

ERP Operations: acting as Interim Product Owner for the existing ERP landscape and ensuring business continuity

ERP Transformation: reorganizing and supporting the ERP migration as a Project Manager; Phase 1 (financial accounting) live since October 2025

Operational Core (ERP): establishing dedicated teams for ERP Support, Feature Development, and ERP Migration

Modern Workplace: initiating the transition towards a Microsoft 365-based cloud workplace environment

Integration: establishing a dedicated team to drive integration and connectivity initiatives

Warehouse Operations: building a cross-functional team to support logistics and warehouse-related capabilities

Maintenance & Operations (M&O): introducing a dedicated team for system engineering, security, stable operations and continuous improvement

AI Initiatives: identifying and promoting practical Artificial Intelligence use cases across the IT department

As Interim Head of IT for a German medium-sized industrial distributor, I am responsible for 31 IT employees and lead the digital and organizational transformation, reporting directly to executive leadership. I took over an IT department with almost no basic structures – no clear roles, processes, documentation or ticket system – and with significant technical debt that tied up most of its capacity. Introduced agile principles and ways of working in the IT organization and transformed the traditionally structured IT department into cross-functional Scrum and Kanban teams focused on transparency, collaboration, and customer value delivery.

Redesigned the entire IT organization by establishing a modern operating model, introducing new roles such as Product Owner, Scrum Master and Solution Architect and strengthening the organization through strategic hiring and targeted capability development. Recruited and onboarded Agile Coaches to accelerate the transformation and personally managed and coached Scrum Masters as well as IT department leaders to foster servant leadership, self-management and a culture of continuous improvement.

Aligned IT-internal planning across eight teams to three Flight Levels based on Klaus Leopold (strategy, coordination, team), laying the foundation for later company-wide portfolio management. Consolidated the backlog of more than 10 workstreams and prioritized it by business value and cost of delay. Introduced a ticketing system to increase transparency and enable data-driven decision-making, flow-based work management, and greater accountability at all levels.

Established and supported multiple cross-functional teams, including the Operational Core (ERP) domain with dedicated streams for Support, Feature Development and ERP Migration, as well as teams responsible for Warehouse Operations, Maintenance & Operations (M&O) including system engineering and security, Modern Workplace, Data Quality and integration initiatives. Worked closely with Agile Coaches to support team development, remove impediments, and continuously improve delivery effectiveness.

Acted as Interim Product Owner for the operation and enhancement of the existing ERP landscape while supporting the ERP migration as a Project Manager. Reorganized the project organization and had the already negotiated contract with the implementation partner realigned with a focus on approach and overall responsibility; Phase 1 (financial accounting) has been live since October 2025. Collaborated with the selected implementation partner to design and establish the project organization and target operating model for the ERP transformation, introducing agile delivery structures and ways of working. Facilitated the alignment between business, IT and the external vendor and played a key role in negotiating the contractual framework and delivery model to ensure a sustainable foundation for the transformation program.

Initiated the strategic modernization of the workplace environment through the adoption of Microsoft 365 cloud capabilities, establishing the foundation for enhanced collaboration, scalability and future digital services.

Launched AI initiatives to identify practical business use cases and promote the responsible adoption of Artificial Intelligence across the IT department. Encouraged self-management and empowered teams to take ownership of decisions, delivery and continuous improvement.

Project: Digital Sovereignty – Toll Collect

Workshop: Digital Sovereignty Recognize dependencies, reduce risks, remain capable of acting

Format

• One-day practical seminar

Target group

• Executive management
• IT managers
• Data protection officers
• Compliance functions

Content and objectives

• Systematic analysis of digital dependencies
• Assessment of legal and operational risks
• Development of a concrete plan to increase digital sovereignty
• Mapping of the entire IT infrastructure by participants
• Identification of critical dependencies on non-European providers
• Creation of a prioritized risk matrix based on:
• GDPR
• NIS2
• EU AI Act
• Joint development of options for action – from a hybrid model to complete migration to European solutions
• Development of an individual sovereignty roadmap with:
• Responsibilities
• Milestones
• Budget framework

Agenda

• Preliminary self-assessment (current infrastructure)
• Digital sovereignty? Nothing but an illusion
• Digital sovereignty 2026 – Germany’s dangerous dependency in focus
• Digital sovereignty & open source
• What is digital sovereignty?
• Three questions raised by digital sovereignty
• Reflection: Digital sovereignty in your own life
• Why is digital sovereignty existential now?
• Practical examples of digital sovereignty
• Schleswig-Holstein initiative
• Benefits of digital sovereignty for your company
• Assessing strategy options (cost-benefit matrix)
• Sovereign provider? 10 questions
• What does digital sovereignty specifically mean for your company?
• How do you shape digital sovereignty?
• Digital sovereignty and psychological safety
• Psychological safety: The key to high-performing teams
• Why psychological safety in your company?
• Benefits of psychological safety
• Invitation to group work: PsySafety Check (PS-C)
• The “Braintrust” experiment
• Creating a risk matrix
• Creating a roadmap & project plan
• European alternatives to US Big Tech
• 10-point plans:
• NIS2
• EU AI Act
• GDPR
• ISO 27001

• Operation and further development of the network and security infrastructure.

• Monitoring, analysis and resolution of network and security incidents.

• Cross-departmental collaboration with other teams on operations and further development, and reporting.

• Firewall vulnerability analysis.

• Firewall access requests.

• Troubleshooting IP communication issues on network and firewall infrastructure.

• Security-critical IT infrastructure, processing of personal data, compliance with legal requirements.

• Products: Palo Alto Networks Firewalls, Cisco ACI, Checkpoint Firewalls, F5

• Technologies: SDN, SDWAN, Cisco EPIC, Cisco ACI

Project – Evaluation and development of databases for a new product line for a measuring equipment manufacturer

• Current-state analysis
• Requirements analysis of the data storage layer
• Writing benchmark tests
• Design of the new database schema
• Database migrations
• Development of audit logging and Part11
• Creation of backup and recovery concepts
• Design of the persistence layer API
• Writing unit tests
• Creating requirements in Azure

Tools: C#, Visual Studio 2022, Azure DevOps, SonarQube, Git, RestSharp, WebServer, PostgreSQL, MS SQL, SQLite, MinIO, Podman, Docker, DataGrip, SQL Management Studio, HeidiDB, pgAdmin

Working Environment

• Insurance / Claims Management (Property, Liability, Automotive)
• REST-based ClaimAPI with Guidewire ClaimCenter

Scope

• Further development of the internal REST-based ClaimAPI with Guidewire ClaimCenter as the backend and various portals/front-end offices as clients, and with the following objectives: + increased AI-supported claims processing outside of Guidewire ClaimCenter + and support for all lines (property, liability, automotive).
• Further development of automated claims processing

Activities

• Interfacing IT & Business
• Design activities with documentation in Confluence, Jira: + Requirements engineering (functional and non-functional) + Design of REST endpoints and coordination with interface partners (esp. AI-colleagues) + Identification, design and evaluation of alternative solutions (moving away from a monolithic approach toward fine-grained endpoints, with code reuse across all lines if possible) + Creation / refinement of product backlog items in Jira, i.e. epics, user stories and tasks, incl. alignment with developers & POs during (pre-)refinement sessions + Using AXA Secure GPT when creating / refining user stories (description, acceptance criteria) and designing REST endpoints + Estimation and prioritization of user stories and tasks during Sprint Planning sessions + Coordination and support during the implementation of Product Backlog items + Driving decision making with preparation and presentation of decision-making documents
• Quality assurance: + Test management, including test case creation using Xray in Jira + Test execution using Bruno as REST client and in Guidewire ClaimCenter + Submission of test artifacts for PO approval + Analysis of production bugs

Methods Big Room Planning (aka PI-Planning in SAFe), Scrum, BPMN, EPK, UML, ERM, DDD

Tools / Tech Stack Teams, Confluence, Jira with Xray, OpenAPI/Swagger, REST, JSON, XML, MS Office, Bruno, GitHub repository (reading), Guidewire ClaimCenter, AXA Secure GPT (AXA's in-house GenAI solution based on Azure OpenAI)

Description of duties “Atruvia / HCL International” Role: HCL Notes Banking Support, Domino Administration / Migration / Operations Operations, administration and technical support of the HCL Notes/Domino environment in the Atruvia banking environment on behalf of HCL. As part of an international support team, the focus was on second- and third-level support as well as the processing, management and monitoring of SLA tickets in categories 1, 2 and 3. Duties included the technical analysis and resolution of incidents in the Notes/Domino environment, system administration, and the development and modification of Lotus Notes /Domino applications and LotusScript agents when a programming solution was required. Another focus was ticket dispatching: analysing and assessing incoming tickets, assigning them to the responsible departments and specialist teams, and subsequently coordinating and tracking processing within the agreed SLA periods. There was also direct communication and coordination with subject-matter experts, departments and end customers of the connected banks. In particular, when language or technical communication problems arose within the international support team, German-language customer communication was handled and mediation between customers and technical specialists was provided. Objective Ensuring stable and reliable operation of the HCL Notes/Domino landscape in the Atruvia banking environment and the timely processing of business-critical support cases in line with the agreed Service Level Agreements. Incidents were to be analysed as early as possible and either resolved directly through administrative measures or suitable LotusScript/Notes solutions, or forwarded specifically to the responsible specialist teams. As of: 25.09.2026 (Version 2.10 LITE) including project times Page: 3 of 32 SPO-SOFT EDV Beratung, Dipl.-Ing. Klaus Kano, Tel.: +494532-2767682, Mail: [email], [link] At the same time, qualified preliminary analysis and targeted ticket dispatching were intended to ensure that every ticket reached the technically and professionally responsible department immediately and that unnecessary transfers, processing times and associated costs were reduced. Result Operational Notes/Domino support for the banks served was reliably ensured throughout the entire project period. SLA-relevant tickets were systematically analysed, prioritised, assigned to the responsible departments and tracked through to resolution. Some incidents were resolved directly through administration, technical error analysis and the development of suitable LotusScript agents and modifications to Notes/Domino applications. By directing tickets specifically to the relevant expert and specialist teams, incorrect assignments and unnecessary processing loops were reduced and compliance with the agreed SLA times was supported. Direct communication with the banks and mediation between German-speaking end customers and the international support team also contributed to efficient problem resolution and high customer satisfaction.

• Holistic project support from analysis through piloting to implementation in the areas of change, process and project management.
• Design and delivery of customer-specific training courses, seminars and workshops on processes, organization and structures with clear objectives.
• Worked as a coach, trainer and keynote speaker on leadership, conflict and communication for up to 300 people.
• Trainer for mediators.

Development of AI and traditional models to analyze medical and patient data, including medication analyses, diagnosis analyses, forecasts, procedure analyses, dosage analyses, comorbidity analyses, prescription analyses, patient potential analyses, referral profile analyses, and prescription analyses. Analyses in the field of Real World Evidence.

Healthcare IT, pharmaceutical industry

Tasks, responsibilities:

• Gathering customer requirements
• Planning the subproject
• Designing and defining KPIs
• Designing and developing models and visualizations of results using customer dashboards
• Developing and implementing data warehouse adaptations
• Deriving recommendations for action

Methods, technologies:

• Simulation
• Artificial intelligence
• Python
• R
• SQL
• Microsoft Power BI
• Amazon Web Services
• Elasticsearch
• PostgreSQL
• Databricks
• Multivariate statistics

Business analysis / requirements engineering for the introduction of a central authorization platform:

• Analysis of existing requirements for the use of IGA solutions (NetIQ, MidPoint) in an existing IAM cluster
• Capturing requirements as epics and user stories (JIRA) to provide a comprehensive description of the use of an IGA solution for central access control across connected platforms and applications.
• Functional solution descriptions (Confluence) for various lifecycle processes, such as Identity Lifecycle (ILC), Role Lifecycle (RLC), Structure Lifecycle (SLC), and Application Lifecycle
• RBAC: Design of a role model in the IGA solution to automate access provisioning as much as possible, capturing application and business roles
• Approach for onboarding applications to the IGA tool, integrating Keycloak (ID Provider).
• Functions and processes for recertifying entitlement objects and roles, and for assigning / removing them from personalized identities.
• Functions and processes for audit-proof documentation and reporting of managed data and processes in the IGA / IAM environment.
• Planning, execution, and documentation of QA / testing for the 1st implementation phase of the MidPoint IGA solution in the IAM cluster.
• Planning a roadmap for the step-by-step testing and introduction of the IGA solution.

Transformation mandate: IT operating model and governance

• Managed the operationalization of a new IT operating model for a service- and customer-oriented organization in the managed services and Microsoft 365 environment.
• Translated the organizational target vision into concrete roles, responsibilities, organizational elements, decision-making paths and collaboration principles.
• Designed and operationalized a layered model with autonomous delivery teams, supporting units and clearly defined governance functions.
• Designed governance for Service Delivery Management, People Leads, Global Service Owner (GSO), operational teams, clusters and management committees.
• Structured the transformation rollout into ramp-up, implementation, stabilization and operations, and developed kick-off, communication and feedback formats.
• Further developed PMO and office structures as well as portfolio and workforce management to create transparency on resources, risks, dependencies and decision-making needs.
• Facilitated cross-functional workshops and decision-making meetings and translated different stakeholder interests into implementable principles, rules and actions.

Interim mandate: IT service and operations management

• Took over operational responsibility for Citrix and AD/Access, including incident, escalation, transition and quality management in day-to-day operations.
• Clarified operational interfaces and clearly defined responsibilities between internal units, Service Delivery Management and external service providers.
• Conducted structured GAP analyses of existing service descriptions, prepared make-or-buy decisions and clarified roles with KPI integration.
• Managed conflicting objectives, dependencies and escalations in complex customer, operations and transformation situations.

Selected results

• The transformation target vision was translated into practically applicable roles, governance rules, organizational elements and rollout formats.
• Decision-making paths, responsibilities and interfaces between operational delivery, supporting functions and management were described transparently and bindingly.
• The foundations for self-managed teams, standardized service descriptions and reliable portfolio, resource and management transparency were established.

Methods: Operating model design, governance design, RACI, GAP analysis, stakeholder analysis, workshop facilitation, change communication, risk and escalation management, KPI and service management

Part-time assignment since 01.09.2026.

• Operational support for fixed asset and investment accounting
• Support with the accounting treatment of assets under construction
• Processing of related accounting transactions in SAP R/3

System: SAP R/3

• Impact: Structured requirements analysis and quality assurance as a foundation for the further development of a software solution.
• Analysis, documentation, and coordination of requirements. Conducting stakeholder analyses, interviews, and workshops to gather and validate requirements. Conducting requirements reviews and working closely with business departments and development teams.

Techniques & Tools: Requirements Engineering, Stakeholder Management, Workshop Facilitation, System Context Modeling, Requirements Reviews, Quality Scenarios, Miro, Jira, Confluence

• Design of a 3-point quick coupling for tractor lifting attachment
• Development of a holder for a drawbar flange device

Migration of an existing application to a new IT infrastructure.

• Managed all project activities (infrastructure, applications, data, security, architecture)
• Planned complex network architectures with security requirements
• Designed and coordinated firewall configurations
• Planned and managed interfaces between ERP, cloud, and third-party systems
• Coordinated middleware solutions (e.g. SAP Integration Suite, MuleSoft, Boomi)
• Defined data flows, mapping rules, and integration architectures
• Managed data migrations and master data harmonization
• Coordinated with business departments, IT teams, service providers, and external partners
• Team size: International team of 35 employees – Germany | Poland | India | USA
• Languages: English

Tools: Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project), Brainloop, Jira, Confluence, MS SharePoint