Christian Piffer - Migration Responsibility for Financial Accounting & Year-End Closing Tests

Recommended expert

Vienna, Austria

Experience

Aug 2023 - Jan 2025

1 year 6 months

Migration Lead for Financial Accounting & Year-End Closing Tests

Raiffeisenverband Salzburg

Project and test management for the financial accounting migration
Coordinating resources
Planning, creation, and alignment of scenarios with business experts and IT product owners
Responsible for financial accounting KPIs in the migration cockpit
System environment: Jira, XRay, Confluence

May 2023 - Present

2 years 9 months

Management Consultant

MediaPrint

Sparring partner for relevant IT topics

Feb 2023 - May 2023

4 months

Project Auditor / PM Expert

Oberbank Leasing GmbH

Conducting qualitative interviews with internal IT, business, and vendor stakeholders
Facilitating a planning workshop to meet critical milestones and timelines
Preparing action recommendations for company leadership and project/IT stakeholders

Jan 2022 - Apr 2023

1 year 4 months

Cross-Stream Work Package Responsibility

Raiffeisenlandesbank OÖ

Building the SAP infrastructure in the in-house environment (RaiTec), as well as application and release management (PFH)
Optimization measures for the transferred SAP infrastructure, transport processes, and workflows (RaiTec, Axians, Phoron)
Implementing and setting up basic authorization management, and coordinating with modules and vendors (Axians, Adweko, CNT, MSG)
Implementing and setting up data quality management for testing phase and later operations (IKS)
Analyzing, coordinating, and implementing performance optimizations in SAP FPSL and middleware (RSG)
Coordinating and optimizing the end-to-end process, functionally and technically, for various job tickets from bank delivery times to the data warehouse
Overall testing responsibility for the ERP and FPSL project streams, and accountability for cross-stream test and environment management between vendors, RSG, PFH, RaiTec, and the bank
Replacing the existing testing approach; introducing XRay as a test/defect plugin in Jira
Planning and establishing cut-over governance, including a dress rehearsal
Planning and coordinating a parallel run phase in the test environment with production data to ensure operational stability for the go/no-go decision
Setting up operational governance post-project: product/application responsibility, test management, and operations concept

May 2021 - Dec 2021

8 months

Project Manager

ARZ/Verbundbanken

Managing the external supplier, TeamViewer
Facilitating coordination with information security, legal, procurement, and ARZ product management
Project-specific coordination between the SaaS supplier, technical contact, and business units (sales & digitalization)
Creating documentation of technical processes and architecture
Managing the project through roll-out to all affiliated banks and mortgage banks

Mar 2021 - May 2021

3 months

Auditor/IT Expert

MediaPrint

Conducted 22 qualitative interviews with IT and business stakeholders
Developed an assessment of IT governance and IT management based on the COBIT 2019 framework
Created recommendations for executive management and IT leaders
Produced documentation of technical processes and architecture

Jan 2021 - Feb 2022

1 year 2 months

CRM/IT/Data Expert

Erste Group AG

Provided ongoing advice and support to the CRM team on various focus areas
Supported the data analytics platform team with impact analyses
Clarified reporting options for archived and historical data
Piloted the financial health feature of the advisory software (BON)

Sep 2020 - Dec 2021

1 year 4 months

Project Manager

ARZ/Volksbanken

Led workshops to define high-level processes and business requirements with the client
Coordinated project-specific alignment between the SaaS vendor, technical contact and business units (sales & digitalization)
Created documentation of technical processes and architecture
Managed the project through to the go/no-go decision for the roll-out to all Volksbanken and mortgage banks

Apr 2020 - Dec 2020

9 months

Interim CTO / Project Manager

Fintech Company (Mortgage Business)

Advised management on all IT matters
Led workshops to define high-level processes and business requirements
Coordinated project-specific alignment with peripheral system vendors
Analyzed core systems and processes in banking, real estate and legal contexts for mortgage financing and innovative processing
Produced documentation for APIs, processes and architecture
Modeled and optimized business processes for end-to-end evaluation (fit-gap analyses)
Supported the project through to handover to the client's internal staff

Nov 2019 - Dec 2021

2 years 2 months

Project Manager

Erste Bank & VIG

Derived a prioritized list of requirements (use cases/topics) for banking and insurance units, considering legal requirements, especially GDPR
Designed and piloted topics in end-to-end processes (insurance, branch, online banking)
Defined data definitions for the bancassurance reporting requirements of the group and controlling
Created reports for report preparation

Nov 2018 - Dec 2020

2 years 2 months

Business Project Manager

Erste Bank Österreich

Subject matter project lead in digitalization and omnichannel integration (5M budget, 30+ people)
Design and implementation of a strategic target vision for the CRM infrastructure and omnichannel measures
Support in reorganizing team structures
Development of a comprehensive CRM strategy
Management of IT resources and deliverables
Coordination of business requirements and priorities across the entire bank

Nov 2017 - Mar 2019

1 year 5 months

Business Project Manager / Product Owner

Erste Bank Österreich

Project management for CRM data and reporting in the customer insights area using Scrum (1.6M budget, >20 people)
Design and methodological development of topics like customer journey, omnichannel reporting, customer contact history, campaign optimization, DMP/Adobe integration, deep analytics
Design and implementation of a prospects database

Nov 2017 - Dec 2018

1 year 2 months

IT Project Manager

Raiffeisen Software GmbH

Project management for the IRB implementation at Raiffeisen Landesbank Upper Austria (2 projects)
Agile methodology using Kanban
Core project team (14 people), total team >50 people, >2000 person-days
Coordination across 5 different team locations

Jun 2016 - Dec 2017

1 year 7 months

Multi IT Project Manager

Raiffeisen Software GmbH

Testing and support of year-end financial statements/balance sheets for 5 state banks after core banking migration
Various small projects to harmonize the accounting landscape
Subproject management for IFRS 9: parallel run, Geos Nostro, opening balance sheet
Full banking test after CBS migration of VAKIF & Posojilnica
Delivery of risk parameters for IFRS 9
Collective provision / portfolio value adjustments
Loan to value / loan to income

Jan 2016 - Aug 2016

8 months

Data Quality Management Expert

Erste Group AG

Definition of roles, structures, and guidelines for group-wide data quality management
Reviewing policy roll-out and implementation
Quality assurance of the DQM approach and development of an impact scoring model
Further development of in-house training for long-term establishment of data governance

Sep 2015 - Jun 2016

10 months

Business Analyst

Erste Group AG

Analysis of the AS-IS processes in credit risk reporting with a focus on regulatory reports
Conducting interviews with subject matter experts and problem assessment
Modeling in ArchiMate 2 in Enterprise Architect
Creating process analyses, feasibility studies, and software requirements specifications

Sep 2015 - Mar 2016

7 months

Moderator / Data Governance Expert

Allgemeines Rechenzentrum

Company analysis through open discussions with all stakeholders
Presenting and discussing data governance methods and reference models
Developing core roles and tasks to anchor data governance in data center operations
Supporting the development of a new requirements process considering data governance specifics
Guiding the implementation of the technical tool mapping

Jun 2015 - Sep 2015

4 months

Project Manager / Data Governance Expert

Berner Group

Company analysis through workshops and interviews on data governance and IT strategy
Developing findings into actionable recommendations
Defining roles, structures, guidelines, and responsibilities
Creating the As-Is status, findings, recommendations, roadmap, and planned figures

Jan 2015 - Jun 2015

6 months

Data Governance Expert

Erste Group AG

Defining roles, structures, and guidelines for a group-wide data governance roll-out
Reviewing the policy roll-out and its implementation
Quality assurance of the data governance approach and developing an impact scoring model
Further developing in-house training for the long-term establishment of data governance

Sep 2014 - Dec 2014

4 months

BI-Consultant/Designer

ÖBB/IKT

Analyzing and logically modeling requirements from group subsidiaries through workshops
Defining all relevant attributes and data loading chains
Specifying reports with special focus on timeline consistency
System environment: Oracle, SAP BW, SAP BO, Remedy, HP ALM, various in-house solutions

Sep 2013 - Jan 2015

1 year 5 months

Test Manager / Project Manager

Raiffeisen Software Solution und Service GmbH

Project and test management for 'Regulatory Reporting Integration' and 'Accounting'
Coordination of test resources
Creation and alignment of test scenarios with subject matter experts and product owners
System environment: HP ALM, MS Project, core banking systems, host programs, DB2

Jan 2011 - Feb 2011

2 months

Requirements Management and Detailed Specification

Volksbanken Investments

Creation of a requirements specification for consolidating various treasury applications
Requirements control together with requirement owners and stakeholders

Apr 2010 - Jun 2010

3 months

Senior Consultant

Mobiltel Bulgaria

Ensuring the accuracy of pricing plans in the new billing system
Designing a validation logic for pricing
Setting up monitoring in Access for a methodically secured migration
System environment: Amdocs, Access

Dec 2009 - May 2010

6 months

Consultant

University of Applied Arts

Gathering requirements through workshops with representatives of all IT clients
Classifying requirements and mapping resources and services
Developing an IT action catalog and breaking it down into projects with recommendations and effort estimates
Supporting the introduction of a service catalog

Nov 2009 - Nov 2009

1 month

Test Manager

Telekom Austria

Creating a company-wide concept for a central test center
Defining prerequisites, boundary conditions, basic concept, and process for staged quality assurance

Oct 2009 - Aug 2013

3 years 11 months

Business Unit Manager

Focus Media Research

Overall responsibility for the online platform schnapp.at and its rollout to 25 countries
Managed strategy, processes, budget and sales
Secured and coordinated partnerships (PR, SEO, SEM, affiliate, social media)
Resource planning for developers, editors, testers and external vendors
System environment: Oracle, PostgreSQL, JBoss, Java, J2EE, Seam, HTML, CSS, Ajax, XML, RESTful services, Android, iOS, Apache Tomcat

Sep 2009 - Mar 2010

7 months

Requirements Management / Consultant

A1 Mobilkom

Derived objectives and shared benefits from expert workshops
Documented the results and aligned them with IT
Built a data dictionary to improve communication
Created a comprehensive specification of requirements for a new sales control system
Prepared the basis for the make-or-buy decision

Feb 2009 - Jun 2009

5 months

Test Manager

A1 Mobilkom

Test management for the A1 Service Portal: defined test strategy, test cases and managed the test center
Black box test, system test, acceptance test, cross-browser test, load test

Jan 2009 - Mar 2009

3 months

Test Manager

A1 Mobilkom

Test management for customer SLA monitoring: black box test, component test, integration test, system test, regression test, end-to-end test, load test, user acceptance test

Sep 2008 - Nov 2011

3 years 3 months

Project Manager / Data Governance Expert

ITSV

Organizational and IT consulting for cross-agency consolidation of the operational data of Austria's social insurance
Migrated operational data from four systems into a unified data warehouse model (100 GB updates per month)

Sep 2008 - Jul 2009

11 months

Senior Consultant

A1 Mobilkom

Organizational and IT consulting for analysis and monitoring of data quality of three operational customer master data systems (20 million records, 100,000 updates/day)
Systematic data quality checks and monitoring
Data profiling, data cleansing, duplicate matching, value-of-data defects
System environment: Clarify, Amdocs, POS, SAP BO, Teradata

Jun 2006 - Aug 2008

2 years 3 months

Group Lead Data Quality Management & Reporting Systems

Volksbanken AG

Responsible for data governance and data strategy including SAP BO
Building and optimizing the reporting infrastructure in the data center (ARZ)
Data quality management for Basel II requirements including roll-out, guidelines, monitoring and escalation process
Managing group-wide data specifications and change requests
Project management with KPMG/ZEB (collateral, exposure segmentation, rating)
SAP BO implementation including training and roll-out
Group contact for reporting and interface to audit, regulatory reporting, risk/controlling, branches, marketing
System environment: DB2, Oracle, SAP BW, SAP BO

Summary

In a variety of projects and programs at the interface between IT and business departments, Christian Piffer has built solid knowledge in IT project management, business analysis, test management, as well as data governance, business intelligence, and in leading different teams. His focus areas include business intelligence, data governance, CRM, as well as the design and development of innovative web solutions across banking, telecom, pharma, public health, public transport, and market research. With his expert knowledge and practical experience in data governance, he has a critical eye on business data modeling, data quality, data management, and the structured management of policies, standards, processes, organization, and technology to achieve any data-driven goal of a company. Overall, Mr. Piffer stands out for his quick comprehension, strong analytical skills, teamwork, and ability to get things done.

Skills

Key Achievements:

Mobilizes The Client's Solution Potential And Creates Frameworks For Decision-making On Operational And Strategic It Topics
An Effective Mix Of Technical Expertise, Method-driven Approaches, Analytical Competence, And Innovative, Pragmatic It Know-how
Leading Project Teams, Even During Critical Phases
Open, Pragmatic, And Closely Attentive To The Client's Needs

Project Areas:

Project Management – 17 Years – Level E
Data Governance (Processes, Organization, Tools, And Methods) – 12 Years – Level E
Data Management / Data Quality – 12 Years – Level E
Digital Transformation – 5 Years – Level E
Reporting Strategy Including Tool Evaluations – 8 Years – Level M
Test Management – 7 Years – Level M
Information Modeling / Processing – 7 Years – Level M
Conceptual / Logical Data Modeling – 4 Years – Level A
Crm, Sales Control, Omnichannel, Digital Transformation – 5 Years – Level A
Core Banking System Migration Experience – 6 Years – Level K