Simon Schmidt

Founder / Co-CEO / Independent Consultant

Plankstadt, Germany

Experience

Feb 2022 - Present
3 years 6 months
Schwetzingen, Germany

Founder / Co-CEO / Independent Consultant

Virtwo GmbH

  • Founded a boutique consultancy
  • Coached the CEO of a film agency startup in company transformation and scaling the business model
  • Interim Head of Controlling for a PE-led telecommunications and fiber optics company
  • Established and led a company-wide transformation program for a PE-led telecommunications and fiber optics company
Oct 2021 - Jan 2022
4 months
Mannheim, Germany

Regional Chief Financial Officer

MBCC Group

  • Interim leadership of the European finance, controlling, and IT functions with over 200 employees
  • Stabilized the organization after a successful carve-out from BASF
Jan 2020 - Feb 2022
1 year 2 months
Mannheim, Germany

Group Senior Vice President Commercial Excellence / Managing Director

MBCC Group

  • Led the concept phase of the transformation program
  • Planned, implemented, and headed the global Commercial Excellence unit
  • Global responsibility for Sales Excellence/CRM (Salesforce), Pricing, Digitalization, and In-house Academy
  • Managed M&A projects including due diligence
Feb 2019 - Sep 2020
1 year 8 months
Mannheim, Germany

Program Lead Carve-Out

BASF Construction Solutions GmbH

  • Full responsibility for the operational carve-out of BASF's European Construction Chemicals business (including TSAs and IT separation)
  • Led the global stand-alone workstreams in the carve-out (including Vision, Mission, Values; Change Management; functional TOMs and new governance model)
  • Led and implemented a project to realign corporate governance (brand-new KPIs, dashboards, and goal-setting processes)
Sep 2017 - Sep 2020
3 years 1 month
Mannheim, Germany

Head of Controlling and Projects Europe

BASF Construction Solutions GmbH

  • Reported to the Head of European Business Unit (SVP) and was part of the European Executive Management Team
  • Managed 20+ operational controllers in continental Europe and a central analysis and project management team
  • Successfully transformed the controlling unit into an efficient business partner organization (including achieving significant cost savings)
  • Implemented multiple improvement initiatives
  • Improved EBITDA by over 50%
Mar 2015 - Aug 2017
2 years 6 months
Austria

Head of Controlling and Projects Central Europe

BASF Österreich GmbH

  • Implemented the new regional strategy for Central and Eastern Europe
  • Led the European strategy workstream for Commercial Excellence and market development
  • Led the controlling department for Central and Eastern Europe (16 countries)
  • Transformed the controlling department into a business partner organization including automated BI dashboards
  • Restructured the sub-regional customer service organization into an efficient shared-service unit including a new KPI set
Nov 2012 - Feb 2015
2 years 4 months
Warsaw, Poland

Head of Project Management and Controlling

BASF Polska Sp. z o.o.

  • Full commercial responsibility for a €150m greenfield investment project (automotive catalysts plant)
  • Led all functional workstreams to build a 400 FTE site organization
  • Responsible for transforming existing local functions (including HR, finance, procurement, IT, etc.) to meet post-opening requirements
  • Led the local controlling unit
Oct 2008 - Oct 2012
4 years 1 month
Ludwigshafen, Germany

Multiple Marketing and Business Development Roles

BASF SE

  • Developed a global business unit strategy (Home Care Chemicals)
  • Led projects to evaluate strategic options for divisions (invest/milk/divest)
  • Managed cross-divisional synergy projects
  • Scouted new business potentials
  • Planned and led industry initiatives (e.g., trade show booth at the furniture fair)
  • Organized large-scale customer projects (e.g., key account activities for IKEA)
  • Managed a junior talent
  • Supported strategy projects

Summary

I am a highly versatile ex-top manager with hands-on experience from a 15-year career at German corporations and a variety of successfully executed projects. My inner drive, passion for people, and urge to optimize, combined with industry and private equity experience, make me an asset to your project!

Languages

German
Native
English
Advanced
Polish
Advanced
Spanish
Advanced
French
Elementary

Education

Oct 2005 - Sep 2008

Duale Hochschule Baden Württemberg - Mannheim

Diploma in Business Information Systems · Mannheim, Germany

Oct 2005 - Sep 2008

The Open University - London

Bachelor of Arts · Business Administration · London, United Kingdom

Certifications & licenses

Professional SCRUM Master I