Digital Executive

2021 - 2023: Chief Digital Officer (CDO) a.i. at a leading European travel industry player

Steered the Digital B2C unit with 100+ employees in the challenging phase of a large scale strategic transformation and re-organization in the travel industry:

• Defined the strategic design of the overall Digital B2C platform and increased the direct online sales share by 2x post-covid
• Re-organized the unit around 5 powerful pillars: CoC Business Analytics & Rules, Digital Marketing Outreach & CRM, Digital Toolkit & Platform, E-2-E Digital Experience, Content Production & Mining
• Conducted an As-is assessment (SEA & Social Media, SEO, UX/CX, Content) including a comprehensive benchmarking and best practice review (cross-industry)
• Designed an overarching business case for three strategic scenarios to pave the most efficient way towards the ambitious mid-term goal of 30% direct online sales share (10x)
• Led three key strategic initiatives dedicated to "B2C brand strategy & architecture", "Digital B2C strategy & disintermediation" and "B2B2C strategy & commissioning model re-design"
• Led two 100 day plan investigation initiatives around group sales commissioning (focus CoD, online & retail) and overall marketing spend effectiveness (B2C & B2B/B2B2C) leveraging the marketing excellence framework
• Investigated and/or implemented AI/ML in the area of recommendations (NBO) and CR optimization (personalised and sales optimised descriptions, etc.)

Further selected engagements:

• Executive & employee coach running the European Lean Startup Workshops for an international pharma company as part of a company-wide acculturation program to innovative methods

• Served as interim executive at early stage and high growth startups to master complex challenges such as the setup of a global product delivery (70 FTE), the rollout of a new eCommerce platform in more than 10 countries or the product and marketing strategy for a 2-sided business model
• Spearheaded large digital transformation programs with up to €14m budget including successful project turnarounds and the launch of five mobility service startups for a business innovation unit
• Advised and coached startups in the area of lean business, customer and product development which contributed to two successful exits of a fashion eCommerce and a B2B SaaS startup
• Jury member, speaker and coach at renowned startup events such as the Lean Startup Machine

Supervised the SW delivery department with 20 members in 3 locations (DE, RO, PL) resulting in increased motivation, cross-location collaboration and successful re-launch of key project "Search"

• Managed the planning and delivery of a large digitalization initiative for a leading insurance company resulting in a successful Germany-wide rollout cutting business process time by >90%
• Strategically analyzed IT landscapes and thereby increased business support efficiency, realized cost savings of up to 20% and defined IT architectures for top tier enterprises in diverse industries
• Spearheaded technology proof-of-concepts and turned proposal pitches into client orders
• Led internal technology group and played integral role in taking HR processes to the next level

• Led a four-member team of senior developers with responsibility for time planning, budgeting, development, QA and rollout of core components at Europe's first pure-play internet banking startup
• Analyzed, designed and developed diverse leading edge financial service solutions including share buyback online and a core banking and brokerage platform for the European market
• Conducted several competitor analyses (benchmarking) as well as market-, product- and technology evaluations and presented insights on international events
• Trained international staff in Internet Architecture and Technologies at the headquarter of Andersen Consulting in Chicago, USA