Dirk S. - Managing Partner

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Usingen, Germany

Experience

Jan 2024 - Present

2 years

Managing Partner

DS E-Power

Jun 2023 - Apr 2025

1 year 11 months

IT Senior Portfolio and Program Manager

Solcom GmbH

External consultant for IT program and multi-project management
Restructuring the project landscape, internal and external coaching in agile/hybrid methodologies
Management, control and reporting of the migration from legacy ERP to Dynamics 365 F&O (BR1, BR2, BR3)
Development and integration of AI-based document and invoice recognition
Partner management and management of implementation partners both functionally and technically
Creation of requirements specification and DevOps structure concept
Setup of development, dev-test, dev-int, UAT and production environments
Interface development between legacy ERP and Dynamics 365 F&O
App development for ReWe and invoice verification
Customizing F&O and master data management
Output management with electronic invoicing (Docentric)
Master and transaction data migration (one-time, daily, hourly)
Ensuring compliance with PWC support
Project volume: approx. 3M EUR
Successful technical go-live of BR1 MVP 11.2024

Mar 2020 - Jul 2023

3 years 5 months

IT Senior Portfolio and Program Manager

NKD GmbH

External consultant for IT portfolio, program and multi-project management
Restructuring the project landscape, coaching in agile/hybrid methodology
Implementation of new POS software and hardware across Europe, ready for expansion up to 3000 stores/6000 devices
Introduction of MS Dynamics 365 cloud order tracking
ERP to D365 cloud migration concept
Implementation of new warehouse and item structures including D365/Dynamics
Release upgrade from Navision to D365/Dynamics
Fiscalization of POS/cash registers in DE and IT in 2020
Shift of fraud detection to BI
Logistics optimizations
Project volume: approx. 20M EUR
Successful European rollout of the new POS software

Oct 2017 - Dec 2019

2 years 3 months

IT Senior Consultant for IT Strategy in Mid-sized Companies

NKD GmbH

External consultant for next-generation IT transformation
Focus areas: inventory management, networking, outsourcing, cloud and data protection (§203)
Restructuring the project landscape and guiding project managers in IT portfolio & demand management
Strategic consulting for future IT system landscape in POS, inventory management and logistics

Jul 2017 - Dec 2019

2 years 6 months

IT Senior Portfolio, Account & Demand Manager

AXA AG

External consultant, interim manager and transformation coach in IT portfolio management
Strengthening the epic and product owner roles in agile transformation (Scrum, Kanban, Jira)
Implementation of big room planning (BRP) for portfolio and milestone planning (4 stages/releases, > 100,000 person days/year)
Restructuring and coaching of project managers in IT portfolio, account & demand management
Ensuring compliance and audit readiness in the cloud area (AWS, OpenPaaS, private IaaS)
Management of approx. 300 infrastructure projects per year (client/server, web, cloud, SAP HANA migrations)

Jun 2016 - Jun 2017

1 year 1 month

IT Portfolio & Program Manager

msg services ag

External consultant, interim manager and transformation coach in IT portfolio & program management
Led and was responsible for a group-wide IT project program (2017 volume > €3.5M)
Introduced status reporting at board level
Established effective IT program management as a control element
Provided transformation coaching for IT program and project managers
Responsible for recruiting and selecting staff
Program management including Windows 10 rollout, Office 2016 rollout, Exchange 2016 migration, Skype for Business migration, designing new network architectures and system relocations

Jan 2016 - Present

10 years

Managing Partner

DSMC GmbH

Dec 2014 - Jun 2016

1 year 7 months

VP / Head IT Operations

Techem Energy Services GmbH

Responsible for Europe-wide IT operations (> 5000 users in 20 countries, 65 million devices)
Coverage of 1st level support, IT performance testing & integration, application and provider management, BCM
Management of > 2000 systems/servers (SAP, UNIX, Linux, Windows, Citrix, Oracle DB)
Budget responsibility > €25M per year
Transformation to a service-oriented retained organization with 12 managers and 25 employees
Established a high-performance IT program management for outsourcing relationships (> 15 parallel)
Ensured compliance and lifecycle management of the server landscape
Stabilized service management to 100% availability in Q1 2016
Integrated first-level support according to ITIL
Introduced an agile approach in IT operations

Jul 2009 - Sep 2014

5 years 3 months

CIO / Head of IT Application Operations MSITS

redblue Marketing GmbH

Full responsibility for the IT of the "just in time" print ad production and marketing
Managed a complex IT landscape (> 70 TB of data, UNIX AIX/Solaris, Windows, Mac, Oracle)
Budget responsibility > €5M per year
Transformed into a service management organization with 15 managers and 25 service partners
Stabilized IT operations and achieved 100% availability after transitioning the data center to IBM (2010) and Cap Gemini (2013)
Ensured BCM and audit readiness

Oct 2005 - Jun 2009

3 years 9 months

VP / Head IT Portfolio Management

Media Saturn IT Services

Established and led demand, portfolio, program, release and rollout management for > 120 concurrent projects
Budget responsibility > €35M and > 180 projects per year
Transitioned and trained the organization in V-Model, ITIL, COBIT with an agile approach
Established a high-performing program and project management organization
Successful rollout in > 800 stores in > 15 countries
Ensured audit readiness and compliance

May 2003 - Sep 2005

2 years 5 months

Senior IT Project Manager

Metro Systems / Metro AG

Responsible for migrating Metro CRM to Oracle/web technology in 15 countries and 500 stores
Release manager for the CRM system for business customers and Payback (30 million customers)
Project volume > €3 million
Introduced offshore development in India
Implemented multi-tenancy with Oracle DB
Centralized data center and web capability in Denmark, Russia, Hungary

Jul 2000 - May 2003

2 years 11 months

VP / Director of Professional Services

CARNOT AG

Led professional services and consulting
Developed and integrated a J2EE workflow product with Oracle 8i and Java frontend
Focus on German Rail and banking workflows
Launched large customer portal bahn.de (2001) and consumer portal bahn.de (2003)
Introduced PDF online tickets (2 million tickets/month)

Jan 1997 - Present

29 years

Managing Partner

DS Immo

Jul 1996 - Jun 2000

4 years

IT Senior Consultant CRM Systems

Metro Systems / Metro AG

Designed, implemented, and managed releases of the Metro CRM client-server system in 10 countries
Developed with Oracle and performed performance tuning
Ensured Y2K compliance
Set up platform-independent Tivoli job scheduling for Windows and UNIX
Trained 2nd level support in 10 countries and carried out over 100 international assignments

Aug 1990 - Aug 1996

6 years 1 month

Herten, Germany

Electrical & Communications Technician

Ruhrkohle AG

Worked full-time in technical service for communications engineering to fund my studies

Summary

30 years of professional experience in IT in various leadership roles at international large enterprises and top German mid-sized companies (METRO AG, BAHN.DE, Media Markt - Saturn Holding, RedBlue Marketing, Techem Energy, MSG Systems AG, AXA AG, NKD, Gala Group, Solcom GmbH)
26 years of experience in IT senior management / VP of international large IT projects in software development, infrastructure & service management, BCM, service delivery, service outsourcing, system integrations & migrations, data center & cloud transitions, portfolio-, multi-project, process including release & capacity management across the group up to a position as CIO / Head of IT. Budget volume > 100M EUR / year.
26 years of experience communicating at C-level
26 years of experience in agile methodologies (Scrum), V-Model and waterfall
23 years of experience in organizational transitions and transformations
5 years as CIO / Head of IT at redblue Marketing GmbH, the marketing & advertising production company of Media Markt – Saturn Holding. Budget responsibility up to > 4.5M EUR / year
4 years as VP of IT portfolio, IT program, IT release & IT capacity management. Implementation, setup and organizational transformation focusing on demand management, IT portfolio, IT program, IT release & capacity management, software rollout management for custom software and standard products like SAP/ERP & HR. Development project volume > 40M EUR per year plus infrastructure investments
2 years as VP / Head of IT Operations in a mid-sized company, budget responsibility > 25M EUR. Including stabilization of IT service management, BCM, ensuring compliance, and smoothing partnerships between IT operations and the IT outsourcer.
Over 10 years as managing director of DSMC consulting, converted to a GmbH in 2022, working independently as VP & IT strategy consultant in IT project portfolio & program management for mid-sized and DAX companies. Including restructuring the project landscape between service providers and client. Transformation and establishment of IT portfolio, IT program, IT project and capacity management in IT operations and IT service delivery. IT strategy for mid-sized companies & corporations. Agile transformation of organizations (tools - Scrum, Kanban, Jira …)
Several years of Europe-wide international experience, project language English
Extensive experience in data center operations and outsourcing including data center transition, transformation and BCM / business continuity management.
Responsibility and management of highly complex data center migrations (to IBM, Cap Gemini, QSC AG) after outsourcing including BCM / business continuity management.
Offshoring & nearshoring of IT services
Transition and transformation of the organization with service orientation according to ITIL
Training and coaching of project managers according to project management standards
Establishing auditability by KPMG and/or PWC