Dilara Ekrem - Epic Owner

Babenhausen, Germany

Experience

Feb 2025 - Present

1 year

Munich, Germany

Epic Owner

Telefonica

As part of the program (RAITT Transformation/Inlife Tribe), efficient handling of all processes for existing customers in operations and customer service, including payments and billing, aiming to ensure customer satisfaction through excellent service and efficient problem solving
Leading the Usage-to-Payments value stream and cross-functional teams as the responsible Epic Owner in the strategic RAITT transformation program
Steering, prioritization, technical alignment, and decision-making between business, architecture, development, and outsourcing partners
Backlog prioritization, strategic roadmap derivation, and release readiness decisions
Establishing governance, quality assurance, and delivery standards in the payment ecosystem
Communicating program-critical decisions to sponsors, product owners, and technical centers
Ensuring smooth payment processes, accurate billing, and integration into financial systems
Optimizing payment methods, managing payment service providers, and efficiently handling credit checks, dunning, and debt collection
Focus on postpaid business models with bank transfer, direct debits, chargebacks, and payouts
Responsible for alternative payment methods such as credit cards, PayPal, and integrating payment service providers, as well as risk management

Jun 2023 - Dec 2024

1 year 7 months

Düsseldorf, Germany

Program Manager EU, Product Management

GHX

Planning, leading, coordinating, and monitoring program activities and milestones across multiple project streams for migrating customer-specific data hosting to the EU
Managing country-specific regulations for data storage in the EU
Leading multiple project streams with European, US-based, and offshore teams
Leading steering committees (steering board, management audits, governance boards) as well as escalation and decision management
Budget responsibility, risk management, roadmap alignment, KPI tracking, and communication control
Establishing program governance, documentation standards, and decision templates for C-level
Analyzing and optimizing business and service processes
Developing and implementing measures for risk reduction and cost optimization
Business process modeling (EPK, BPMN) and object-oriented analysis (OOA)
Managing data migration in collaboration with country-specific data managers
Moderating and leading program status, steering committee, and management team meetings
Managing rollout activities with a focus on quality standards

Apr 2022 - Apr 2023

1 year 1 month

Würzburg, Germany

Department Head Support, Project Manager, Change Manager, Process Manager

Deutsche Rentenversicherung

Modernizing the DSRV project by introducing a Linux operating platform and migrating the zOS host system to x86 with Linux and VMware, including Oracle DB
Central interface for requirements between the target platform squad and the department across complex IT infrastructures
Operational and methodological leadership responsibility within the DSRV modernization initiative
Managing infrastructure, operations, security, and compliance teams as well as external partners
Introducing agile methods, creating Kanban boards, and IT service management processes
Coordinating migrations and service transitions to an external provider
Modeling current and target processes (BPMN, UML) and documenting change requirements
Creating dashboards for real-time transparency and implementing a governance structure
Introducing Google Workspace and standardizing templates and workflows via Confluence or SharePoint
Supporting digitization and automation initiatives and self-service solutions

May 2021 - Feb 2022

10 months

Leipzig, Germany

E-commerce/Online Product Manager

Sixt Leasing SE

Carve-out project to separate the IT from the parent company and acting as IT Product Owner for websites
Continuously optimizing and designing the multilingual corporate website and web portals for new vehicle leasing
Formulating requirements as user stories in coordination with marketing and product management
Leading an IT team (7 team members) and an offshore development team in Kyiv (7 people)
Responsible for SharePoint data, data control checks, and access management
Defining test procedures, acceptance criteria, and usability tests
Filling and prioritizing the backlog as well as developing the product roadmap
End-to-end management of the product development process and go-to-market strategies
Stakeholder management nationally and internationally with reporting to C-level

Jan 2020 - Dec 2020

1 year

Munich, Germany

Process Manager, Requirements Manager, Project Coordinator, Change Manager

FI-TS

Coordinating a server migration from Windows 2008 to Windows 2016 for about 3000 servers (virtual, physical, and cloud solutions)
Planning SQL DB migrations, creating firewall requests, and setting up assets
Planning and coordinating changes, creating operational orders
Monitoring the project roadmap, resources, budget, and dependencies
Developing strategies for scalable IT cabling and network infrastructure
Creating solution designs as a basis for technical implementation

Feb 2018 - Dec 2019

1 year 11 months

Munich, Germany

Senior Business Consultant

e-Aces

Conducted requirements analysis and created business process designs for the VW Group project centralizing brand-specific inventory processes under GDPR
Developed customer journeys, data management concepts, and automated data deletion processes
Designed value propositions, business models, business services, and value stream analyses
Optimized the Vehicle Connectivity Framework (VCF) and managed the product backlog
Served as Change Owner and Product Quality Manager in the BMW ConnectedDrive project, handling finance management and stakeholder relations
Introduced new change requests, created test cases and blueprints, and managed quality assurance

Sep 2016 - Dec 2017

1 year 4 months

Munich, Germany

IT Business Consultant

Acando GmbH

Project lead for the introduction of an e-wallet at VW Financial Services (Audi) and business process optimization for expanding an e-wallet institute in Luxembourg
Managed stakeholders, created target-state definitions, and collaborated technically with DevOps
Led a Wi-Fi authentication project at the Goethe Institute, including network analysis and capacity management
Set up vCenter for backup and restore functions and managed backup migration to virtual infrastructures with a budget responsibility of up to €187k
Served as process manager and single point of contact for Telefonica in deploying a software asset management tool and validating a cloud middleware
Project lead at Airbus Defence and Space for CRM implementation (Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016) with a budget responsibility of up to €114k

Feb 2016 - Aug 2016

7 months

Frankfurt am Main, Germany

IT Business Consultant

Commerzbank AG

Product Owner, lead process and change management, and PMO for launching a multi-channel online banking platform with MS Dynamics CRM
Acted as liaison between business units and IT, managed the gatekeeper process, and defined work packages
Handled project controlling, coached business units, and validated CRM solutions
Gathered change requirements for securities, advisory, and online banking processes

Feb 2014 - Jul 2014

6 months

Student Assistant

Hochschule Darmstadt

Developed a campus tour app using PHP, MySQL, and HTML

Jul 2011 - Jul 2015

4 years 1 month

Babenhausen, Germany

Working Student in Software Development

Continental Automotive GmbH

Designed, tested, and developed diagnostic tools for driver information systems
Deployed modules in test, integration, and production environments and performed developer tests
Documented technical implementations, specifications, and presentations
Developed web tools to parse proprietary file formats and convert files (ODX, BIN, HEX)
Programmed in C++, C, JavaScript, and PHP