Thomas Pacal

Senior Organizational Change Executive

Vienna, Austria
Experience
Jan 2024 - Dec 2025
2 years
Berlin, Germany

Change Manager / Sales Transformation

SEFE

Organizational change management as part of a company-wide, supranational sales transformation at the heart of a major restructuring of critical areas, handling end-to-end change process management and anchoring sustainable sales capabilities for the future.

  • Initiated and fully managed the sales transformation program, starting with an in-depth analysis to identify, assess, and strategically engage all relevant stakeholders, tactically using their specific interests and influence.
  • Conducted a detailed change-impact analysis to forecast organizational effects, crafted a custom change strategy and roadmap outlining concrete steps, and iteratively developed a change story as the core narrative for the campaign.
  • Quickly designed and executed an integrated communication and action plan to ensure maximum transparency, manage implicit expectations, and guide a clear, engaging change process for all stakeholders.
  • Actively managed all transformation phases, establishing robust monitoring to track progress and predict outcomes using a balanced mix of recommended and jointly defined KPIs.
  • Established an agile review-and-adjust cycle to continuously evaluate measure effectiveness, spot challenges early, and fine-tune the change strategy promptly.
  • Performed precise gap analyses to identify sales team skill gaps in light of the new strategy, then designed and delivered targeted qualification programs (e.g., coaching, training) to close them.
  • Reduced resistance by turning the most opposed stakeholders into proactive change ambassadors.
  • Achieved a deep, lasting realignment of sales structures and processes fully aligned with overarching strategic goals.
  • Delivered measurable improvements in sales efficiency and performance as a direct result of the transformation and skill-building initiatives.
Jan 2023 - Dec 2024
2 years
Cologne, Germany

Change Manager / Product-Centric Transformation

Arlanxeo, Saudi Aramco Group

Organizational change management for a group-wide transformation; focus: restructuring into a product-centric organization (PCO) alongside an agile IT transformation (initiated in global IT and serving as a company-wide blueprint), with added responsibility for new ways of working and strengthening leadership skills.

  • Led the strategic direction of the shift to a product-centric organization, starting with global IT as a pilot to create positive momentum across silos and cultures.
  • Identified and analyzed all key IT stakeholders and relevant interfaces; developed a tailored change roadmap to guide the process.
  • Supported implementation with continuous progress monitoring and set up a robust two-way feedback system with pulse surveys and one-on-one meetings for ongoing evaluation and adjustment.
  • Repeatedly identified critical leadership skill gaps (prioritization, ownership, psychological safety, decision momentum) through targeted analyses, executive job forums, and town halls as a basis for development.
  • Designed and facilitated leadership off-sites to build skills in effective re-prioritization under pressure, cultivate ownership, and clarify responsibilities by consensus.
  • Ran executive coaching sessions to boost psychological safety and trust at the top two leadership levels, fostering an open, tolerant, high-performance culture.
  • Ensured continuous communication and alignment throughout, maintaining transparency, driving change acceptance, and keeping the momentum alive.
  • Delivered a 68% increase in leadership effectiveness through better prioritization and establishing a clear ownership culture in global IT.
  • Achieved a 39% improvement in organizational climate and raised psychological safety at the leadership level, driving a more open communication and feedback culture.
  • Secured the transformation’s gains in global IT, now recognized and requested as a blueprint for company-wide adoption.
Jan 2022 - Dec 2022
1 year
Ludwigsburg, Germany

Change Manager / Digital Transformation

Mann+Hummel

Organizational change management for a critical flagship digital initiative: end-to-end digital transformation of the global PLM system to create a multi-scenario forecast-capable digital twin of all processes (design-to-cost approach, enabling product developers to see near real-time nominal prices via VR/AR headsets).

  • Managed all executive-level stakeholders to build leadership commitment through a dedicated change agent network.
  • Led change communication campaigns to secure high acceptance among tens of thousands of employees before, during, and after go-live, measuring adoption progress and regularly presenting to the executive board.
  • Applied agile change management alongside the company’s parallel agile transformation, especially in the initially resistant production plants.
  • Developed the change strategy and crafted the change story as the core of the communication plan.
  • Designed and delivered leadership change workshops as a roadshow across all affected sites to inform staff about the program, changes, and new ways of working.
  • Implemented training, communication, and engagement initiatives focused on executing defined measures and tracking success with KPIs.
  • Achieved an unexpected 100% acceptance rate through personalized one-on-one stakeholder engagement.
  • Embedded the new target operating model with improved internal communication and overcame silos, especially in plants.
  • Fostered an agile mindset and critical team spirit to prevent new silo formation.
Jan 2020 - Dec 2021
2 years
Novi Sad, Serbia

Change Manager / Digital Transformation & Scale-Up

RTBE

Led agile transformation of globally distributed business units alongside digital transformation of the core model to enable seamless scaling across three continents and implement a new target operating model while maintaining operations through a wide-ranging OCM package.

  • Fully digitized the core business model by creating a digital twin of all processes, buildings, and systems using IoT sensors as an MVP proof-of-concept, which became the flagship product, enabling early corrective interventions in construction projects with smart AR headsets and predictive scenarios via the digital twin.
  • Prepared global expansion (EU→US→APAC) with rapid scaling (~700% headcount growth), managing pandemic-driven staffing shortages and resistance to secure controlled, healthy growth operationally, strategically, and administratively.
  • Transformed all business units to DevOps to harmonize diverse development processes and bridge silos, integrating physicists and technicians into software engineering culture.
  • Embedded the new operating model with improved communication and overcame silos.
  • Delivered significant EBITDA growth despite early scaling costs.
  • Built an agile, efficiency-driven, critical team mindset.
Jan 2018 - Dec 2019
2 years
Vienna, Austria

Change Manager / Digital Transformation

WRW

Built the Digital Office as the central platform for all digital projects and consolidated continental market leadership by launching a digital innovation hub on Scrum, alongside adaptive organizational change and system integration of decentralized apps to prepare for the 2019 CDO.

  • Defined clear digital governance impacting decision rights, processes, and transparency for PPPs, based on an analysis of digital maturity, overlapping skills, delays, and bottlenecks at interface points.
  • Set up the Digital Office in terms of staffing, infrastructure, workshops on change, innovation, Scrum, crisis communication, and de-escalation, embedding it at the executive level for practical decision power, clear governance, and IT boundary setting; created the digital roadmap.
  • Secured the strategic advantage by launching a digital innovation hub to run disruptive initiatives, like reducing administrative effort through automated interactions with nearshoring partners via a digital contractor platform.
  • Integrated critical legacy systems with Group IT, audited nonfunctional components, and planned interface development for frictionless private-market entry.
  • Conceived and implemented 27 subprojects to hand off to the 2019-appointed CDO, ensuring the office could run leaderless for up to nine months to protect the brand.
  • Cut project times dramatically, delivering PR-winning savings at the local level.
  • Established the Digital Office and i-Hub as innovation leaders and go-to for digital matters.
  • Built in a three-quarter buffer for leader absence to minimize PR risk if the CDO was unavailable.
Jan 2015 - Dec 2017
3 years
Vienna, Austria

Change Manager / Digital Transformation

Esperta

Strategic repositioning to boost competitiveness of a non-contemporary model, driving deep operational changes, organization development, and system integration and upgrades of core applications (Secure Translation Brokerage Platform).

  • Conducted a thorough analysis of organization, processes, standards, critical workflows, strategic partnerships (evaluating a global, varied expert network), internal and external communication, go-to-market strategy, diversification efforts, competitive and regulatory environment, sourcing, and legacy systems.
  • Designed and implemented all BPRE measures, repositioning the firm from a translation provider to a full-service translation broker, shifting core work from pure translation to project management for better onshore resource use.
  • Created a clear competitive edge with disruptive innovations, like radical cost cuts through efficient use of the global offshore network across time zones.
  • Analyzed technology, re-conceived, and implemented the entire ICT area via multi-stage, incremental, full cross-platform migration of legacy enterprise software using agile methods (Scrum, Kanban).
  • Integrated and upgraded all internal ICT systems (notebooks, servers, backups, cloud, audio/video, mobile devices) without service interruption.
  • Cut internal process complexity, shortening go-to-market cycles.
  • Reduced qualitative and organizational inconsistency to avoid HR crises.
  • Slashed project times by about 80%.
Jan 2014 - Present
11 years 7 months
Vienna, Austria

CEO

EMBRACE

A small, efficient, highly flexible, globally operating consulting firm focused on change management. Core business areas:

  • Business Transformation
  • Innovation Think-Tanks
  • Transfer of Business.
Jan 2014 - Dec 2015
2 years
Vienna, Austria

Change Manager; Senior Project- & Program Manager

Global Blue

Crisis intervention, restabilization, and coordination of a large, intercontinental expert team; project and program management; system integration and upgrades of critical Big Data applications and platforms (tax-free shopping processing and real-time currency conversion).

  • Triage and intervention in a repeatedly failed, legacy project deeply tied to the client’s core business, coordinating around 2,000 experts across on-, near-, and offshore matrix teams.
  • Restabilized teams suffering high turnover from leadership gaps and psychological conflicts, reuniting fragmented teams for fast, efficient decision-making.
  • Integrated legacy systems and prepared data from end-of-life systems into a data warehouse, replacing or standardizing divergent tech stacks (e.g., Microsoft .NET with IBM BPM).
  • Defined a successful approach to embed and operationalize new IBM BPM-based processes, continuously reporting progress at board level.
  • Managed programs in a dynamic agile environment (hybrid Scrum/Kanban with Waterfall), bridging business and IT, consolidating internal success metrics.
  • Mediated team leads, eliminated toxic behaviors, rooted out hidden bullying, cut silo thinking, and restored interdisciplinary collaboration vertically, horizontally, and globally.
  • Held overall responsibility for designing and sustaining the change management program within agreed cost, time, and quality parameters.
Jan 2012 - Dec 2014
3 years
Vienna, Austria

Senior Consultant

IBM

Project management, business analysis, presales, and use case design in big data, specializing in data warehousing, BI, content analytics, and business process re-engineering.

  • Managed an average of 17 clients simultaneously across industries (banking/finance, oil & gas, transport & logistics, electronic engineering) through all phases (initiation, planning, analysis, design, implementation, testing, rollout) with a business-to-IT bridge role.
  • Led a 10-person development team, coached a junior project manager, and managed external implementation partners.
  • Served as senior business analyst and DWH/BI solution architect for Raiffeisen Bank International, re-engineering and migrating the core banking data warehouse solution, planning master test plans for all banking areas.
  • Ran a digital transformation for a European machinery maker, adding real-time sensor analytics with predictive maintenance via big data and AR-enabled mobile monitoring.
  • Designed management dashboards in IBM Cognos for complex data architectures.
  • Provided presales via use case design, demonstrating BI solutions on-site.
  • Specialized in BI for customer insight, market analytics, supply chain, and HR.
Jan 2010 - Dec 2014
5 years
New York, United States

Change Manager; Council Consultant

Gerson Lehrman Group

Numerous consulting projects in contactless/wireless/mobile payments, mobile banking, AML, KYC, CRM, for and with firms in strategy, packaging, and investment banking.

  • Strategy (Bain & Co, BCG, McKinsey, EY)
  • Packaging (MeadWestvaco)
  • Investment Banking (Goldman Sachs, MFC Global Investment Management, Fir Tree Partners, La Financière de l’Echiquier)
Jan 2008 - Dec 2010
3 years
Vienna, Austria

Head of Treasury BackOffice

DenizBank Financial Services, Dexia Group

  • Restructured the entire treasury back office, including securities settlement, foreign and domestic payments.
  • Planned and ran treasury trading tests, usability reviews, and final assessments before migrating from AS400-based core banking to a modern Windows system.
  • Proactively analyzed, planned, and integrated standalone banking applications (SWIFT, SEPA, Reuters, Bloomberg, Svenson) into the core system.
  • Authored a detailed multi-part manual for treasury and back office operations, with hundreds of screenshots, diagrams, special cases, worst-case scenarios, and troubleshooting, written so non-bankers could start without training.
Jan 2007 - Dec 2008
2 years
Cape Town, South Africa

Strategic Consultant

Petroleum, Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa

  • Introduced a risk management system; delivered multi-stage training for trading and supply & logistics teams.
  • Published a handbook on commodity trading and supply & logistics functions, variants, and troubleshooting.
Jan 2007 - Dec 2007
1 year
Mumbai, India

Strategic Consultant

HPCL - Hindustan Petroleum Corporation

  • Introduced a risk management system; provided multi-stage training for trading and refinery staff.
  • Published a handbook on commodity trading and refinery operations, variants, and troubleshooting.
Jan 2006 - Dec 2007
2 years
Mumbai, India

Strategic Consultant

Essar Oil Ltd, Hutchison Group

  • Co-led the rollout of a risk management system; trained risk management teams on hedging strategies against cargo or freight loss for mega oil tankers and offshore platforms.
  • Published a handbook on risk management functions, variants, and troubleshooting.
Jan 2005 - Dec 2005
1 year
Belgrade, Serbia

Change Manager

Galenika Fitofarmacija Serbia

  • Launched large-scale OD initiatives after evaluating all areas using greenfield and blue ocean approaches to transform into an international player without friction.
  • Set up internal micro think-tanks with selected experts, mid-managers, and staff to shift from low-cost differentiation to becoming an innovation leader in SEE.
  • Restructured, formed, coached, mentored, and trained the sales executive team, including the sales director and 14 regional directors, to improve results with international partners.
  • Designed and conducted intercultural training for the executive team to secure competitive market advantages.
  • Introduced an open, less patriarchal communication culture to transfer know-how through trust-building across top management (Nash equilibrium approach).
Jan 2003 - Dec 2004
2 years
Vienna, Austria

Online & Wireless Marketing Manager

Universal Communication Platform Group

  • Transformed market communication to pure permission marketing (e.g., multiple opt-in for newsletters and mobile equivalents).
  • Achieved highly precise customer segmentation enabling targeted direct marketing, driving exceptional click-through rates and ROI using the multiple opt-in approach.
Jan 2002 - Dec 2002
1 year
Vienna, Austria

Project Manager Digital Transformation

Zurich Insurance Group

  • Digitized all internal and external forms across the group independently.
  • Eliminated manual data entry and its high labor cost.
  • Enabled automated data transfer to internal ERP systems.
Jan 2001 - Dec 2002
2 years
Vienna, Austria

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Goldbach Media Group

  • Introduced permission marketing when spam was still common practice.
  • Prepared the merger with Goldbach Media.
Jan 2000 - Dec 2001
2 years
Parma, Italy

Co-Founder; Head of Sales & Media Planning

Buongiorno Digital

  • Co-founded the first office outside Italy.
  • Strategically planned expansion into other European markets suited to the new newsletter marketing concept.
  • Rolled out corporate operations in the UK, CH, AT, and DE.
  • Researched the US market ahead of the merger with Vitaminic to form Buongiorno Vitaminic (USA).
Jan 1999 - Dec 2000
2 years
Vienna, Austria

Project Manager Custody & Reconciliation/Treasury

Raiffeisen Service Center

  • Created and implemented a fast, accurate, software-driven method for securities account reconciliation.
Jan 1998 - Dec 1999
2 years
Vienna, Austria

Project Manager; Trade Fair Coordinator

Wiener Messen & Kongresszentrum

  • Planned and ran a multi-day music fair that, despite minimal budget and tight deadlines, drew 26,000 paying visitors – a record for Austria at the time.
  • Repositioned and revived IFABO, Austria’s largest IT trade fair, threatened by competitor events.
Jan 1998 - Dec 1998
1 year
Vienna, Austria

Project Manager; Smart Grid Process Manager

One / Hutchison

  • Analyzed internal processes for network optimization; migrated and unified decentralized data into a central database.
  • Digitized and formatted all planned data from legacy systems to map Austria’s network architecture in Visio.
  • Designed a smart grid considering regulations, optimizing BTS placement and transmission power.
  • Supported Austria’s first indoor proto-UMTS tests to guide mobile license acquisition and grid upgrades.
Jan 1996 - Dec 1997
2 years
Lyme Regis, United Kingdom

Marketing Manager / IoT

Evtacon Limited

  • Solely developed and executed Evtacon’s EU and US marketing strategy for a groundbreaking modular microprocessor (the Universal Emulator), a precursor to IoT for universal hardware integration.
  • Built Evtacon’s first website in 1996, making it one of the first microelectronics firms online.
  • Crafted a unified corporate identity and design applied across print, web, email, press, giveaways, and trade show presence.
Jan 1994 - Dec 1995
2 years
Vienna, Austria

Jr Project Manager / Telemarketing Coordinator

BP

  • Introduced the Routex billing and fleet management system to Austria’s B2B market.
  • Scaled the telemarketing team by 250%.
  • Cut acquisition costs to 33% by refining and bundling the target audience (fleet operators, later SMEs via relevant associations).
Summary

Thomas Pacal is an experienced change manager specializing in digital transformation, strategic change management, innovation management, and crisis prevention, intervention, and business restabilization. With over 20 years of relevant experience in the field, he founded EMBRACE in 2014 – a small, efficient, highly flexible, globally operating consulting firm focused on change management. Core business areas: business transformation, innovation think-tanks, and business transfer.

Languages
German
Native
English
Advanced
Spanish
Advanced
Croatian
Advanced
Serbian
Intermediate
...and 1 more
Education

Hult Business School

MBA

Open University Business School

BSc · Change Management · United Kingdom

Certifications & licenses

ICF-accredited Diploma in Systemic Coaching

ISO/IEC 17024 Certification in Change Management

ISO/PRF 20700 Certification as a Management Consultant

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