Marc R. - Design and Implementation of a Cost Transparency Initiative

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Cologne, Germany

Experience

May 2024 - Dec 2024

8 months

Design and Implementation of a Cost Transparency Initiative

Designed and implemented a cost transparency initiative to analyze the costs of software teams and optimize Capex/Opex tracking.
Focus areas: Change management, Developer efficiency, IT controlling.

Aug 2023 - Dec 2024

1 year 5 months

Efficiency Improvement in E-Commerce Software Department

Achieved significant efficiency gains in an e-commerce software department (~150 FTE) by introducing delivery KPIs, process optimization, and improved coordination between engineering, project, and product management.
Focus areas: Leadership coaching, Agile transformation, Developer efficiency, OKRs.

Feb 2023 - Aug 2023

7 months

Optimization of Sourcing Setup for External Developers

Delivered cost savings by reviewing and optimizing the sourcing setup of ~70 external developers: evaluating new sourcing providers, redefining collaboration between internal teams, stakeholders, and external development teams, and overseeing implementation.
Focus areas: Sourcing strategy, Leadership coaching, Change management, Project management.

Jan 2023 - Present

2 years 8 months

Cologne, Germany

Interim Manager, Consultant and Agile Coach

Roessler.Works

Operating independently as an interim manager, consultant, and agile coach.

Jun 2022 - Oct 2022

5 months

Cost Reduction Strategy for a Manual Production Process

Developed a cost reduction strategy for a manual production process for analyzing news content through process and requirements analysis and alignment with the relevant business units.
Focus areas: Product management, Digital transformation, Cost efficiencies.

Apr 2022 - Dec 2022

9 months

CTO

Unicepta GmbH & Ubermetrics Technologies GmbH

Led ~50 IT professionals through a post-merger integration.
Updated and implemented the technical strategy with a focus on AI-based automation.

Apr 2021 - Dec 2022

1 year 9 months

Building an AI Team

Hired and built an AI team to use deep learning for the automatic evaluation and analysis of news content.
Focus areas: Hiring & sourcing, AI team development.

Jan 2021 - Jun 2022

1 year 6 months

Integration of Development Departments After Acquisition

Integrated two development departments after an acquisition: designed a joint target architecture and established a development culture focused on reliable and high-quality delivery.
Focus areas: Tech strategy, Post-merger, Governance.

Jan 2020 - Aug 2021

1 year 8 months

Technical Strategy for Automating Media Monitoring

Developed and implemented the technical strategy to automate a system for curating news content for media monitoring.
The AI-based, semi-automatic workflow system led to a significant reduction in manual efforts.
Focus areas: Tech strategy, Product management, Digital transformation, Cost efficiencies, AI.

Feb 2017 - Mar 2022

5 years 2 months

Managing Director | Head of IT

Unicepta GmbH

Defined and implemented the tech strategy in close alignment with management and investors.
Expanded the team from 10 to 30 developers.

Feb 2017 - Aug 2018

1 year 7 months

Stabilization and Modernization of Legacy Tech Stack

Stabilized and modernized an outdated and hard-to-maintain legacy tech stack by upskilling the existing team, adding experienced engineers, and carefully prioritizing stability over complete rewrites.
Focus areas: Hiring/sourcing strategy, Organizational development, Digital transformation.

Jan 2012 - Jan 2017

5 years 1 month

Director of Engineering

Recommind GmbH

Led development, implementation, and support teams (35 FTE).
Migrated to the cloud and made development processes more agile.

Aug 2008 - Dec 2011

3 years 5 months

Engineering Manager

Recommind GmbH

Built the engineering organization and support processes to support the US go-to-market of an early AI legal-tech product.

Jan 2008 - Jul 2008

7 months

Consultant

Recommind GmbH

Oct 2000 - Dec 2007

7 years 3 months

Essen, Germany

Research Associate and Lecturer

University of Duisburg-Essen

Designed, conducted, and coordinated a publicly funded research project (BMBF) on AI-based text annotation.
PhD “summa cum laude” in computational linguistics, dissertation on “corpus-adaptive named entity recognition”.

Kanban/Scrum Introduction

In various projects: introduced Kanban/Scrum for development, production, and support teams, resulting in self-organization, higher efficiency, and improved customer focus.
Focus areas: Kanban, Scrum, IT support and operations.

Summary

As an experienced executive, consultant, and coach with a strong technical background and expertise in artificial intelligence, I ensure that IT projects, teams, and investments are efficient and strategically aligned with business goals.

Strategic alignment: Align IT projects and investments measurably with business objectives.
Efficiency improvement: Optimize development processes, collaboration, and skills in IT and software teams.
Creating cost transparency and enabling optimization: Make costs and investments in IT and development visible to make informed optimization decisions.