Simon S.

Founder / Co-CEO / Independent Contact Consultant

Plankstadt, Germany

Experience

Feb 2022 - Present
3 years 11 months
Mainz, Germany

Founder / Co-CEO / Independent Contact Consultant

Virtwo GmbH

  • Founded a boutique consulting firm
  • Coached the CEO of a film agency startup on company transformation and business model scaling
  • Served as Interim Head of Controlling for a PE-backed telecommunications and fiber optics company
  • Built and led a company-wide transformation program for a PE-backed 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 2021 - Feb 2022
1 year 2 months
Mannheim, Germany

Group Senior Vice President Commercial Excellence / Managing Director Business Transformation

MBCC Group

  • Led the concept phase of the transformation program (PMI, "100 day plan")
  • Managed M&A projects including due diligence
  • Planned, implemented, and led the global Commercial Excellence unit
  • Global responsibility for sales excellence/CRM (Salesforce), pricing, digitalization, and the in-house academy
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 financials, TSAs, and IT separation)
  • Led the global stand-alone workstreams in the carve-out (including vision, mission, values; change management; functional TOMs; and a new governance model)
  • Led and implemented a project to realign corporate management (with completely new KPIs, dashboards, and target-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 the European Business Unit (SVP) and was part of the European executive management team
  • Managed over 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 (achieving significant cost savings)
  • Implemented several 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

  • Implementing the new regional strategy for Central and Eastern Europe
  • Leading the European strategy workstream for Commercial Excellence and market development
  • Managing the controlling department for Central and Eastern Europe (16 countries)
  • Transforming the controlling department into a business partner organization including automated BI dashboards
  • Restructuring the sub-regional customer service organization into an efficient shared-service unit with a new set of KPIs
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 catalyst plant)
  • Leading all functional workstreams to build a 400 FTE site organization
  • Responsible for transforming the locally existing functions (including HR, finance, procurement, IT, etc.) to meet the requirements after the new site's opening
  • Managing the local controlling unit
Oct 2008 - Oct 2012
4 years 1 month
Ludwigshafen, Germany

Multiple Marketing and Business Development Roles

BASF SE

  • Developing a global business unit strategy (Home Care Chemicals)
  • Leading projects to evaluate strategic options for divisions (invest/milk/divest)
  • Managing cross-functional synergy projects
  • Scouting new business potentials
  • Planning and leading industry initiatives (e.g. trade show booth at a furniture fair)
  • Organizing major customer projects (e.g. key account responsibilities for IKEA)
  • Mentoring a junior talent
  • Supporting strategy projects

Summary

I am a highly versatile former top manager with hands-on experience from 15 years at German corporations and a wide range of successfully executed projects. My inner drive, passion for people, and eagerness to optimize, combined with industrial and private equity experience, make me a valuable asset for your project!

Languages

German
Native
English
Advanced
Spanish
Advanced
Polish
Advanced
French
Elementary

Education

Oct 2005 - Sep 2008

Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg - Mannheim

Diploma in Business Informatics · Business Informatics · Mannheim, Germany

Oct 2005 - Sep 2008

The Open University

Bachelor of Arts · Business Administration · London, United Kingdom

Certifications & licenses

Professional SCRUM Master I

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