YOU NEED HELP WITH BUILDING OR TRANSFORMING A GREAT BUSINESS?
I seize opportunities and empower people so that, together, we challenge and improve the status quo.
I support international, mostly private equity-held companies and their (management) teams as a servant business leader and engaged management consultant during tough times - business transformation / change, start-up, post-merger and exit situations.
My functional experiences spans general management, business transformation and development as well as finance / corporate development. If needed, I am more than happy to join your management team.
Over the years I've gained a deep understanding of platform businesses / two-sided marketplaces and industries such as automotive remarketing and trade (B2B & B2C) / leasing / subscription / fleet management and online advertising. I have done projects in the software-as-a-service, financial services, pharmaceutical and oil & gas industries.
MY LEVERAGE
LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Servant leader, highly skilled particularly in volatile, uncertain, and complex environments – with a clear focus on recruiting, development, and retention of top performers. Extensive use of internal communication to create transparency and trust. Led diverse teams of up to 90 employees. Steered, motivated and built effective teams from scratch.
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Covers the entire business development lifecycle, ranging from identification and analysis of potential partners to deal negotiation and implementation. Created a vendor-side product, leading to 1,000% volume growth, and formed a partnership with an online platform to generate new demand for a two-sided marketplace.
Directly sold hundreds of young used cars to dealers across Europe and months ahead of availability.
MARKETING AND SALES
Provides a strategic perspective to marketing and sales. Engages with clients joining critical meetings and serving as keynote speaker. Established an online sales team to drive leads management and enablement of eCommerce. Transformed a sales team by reducing its size by 80%, focusing on quality and adding a sales operations team, leading to a significant increase in sales.
STRATEGIC PLANNING
Develops creative and effective strategies in diverse industries, surfacing core drivers of innovation and performance through deep business understanding and taking organizational readiness into consideration. Created comprehensive growth strategies for diverse businesses, including go-to-market, new commercial models, product development, organization and process changes, external partnerships development, and governance changes.
BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION
Spearheads successful transformation programs in different companies and across industries. Ensures timely execution applying agile program and project management methods, including OKRs. Improved a business unit, resulting in 17% YoY sales growth, despite short-term sales capacity constraints, and parallel price increases of up to 3%points, adding millioins of euros per annum to the bottom line. Turned around a B2B marketplace, resulting in lasting revenue growth in excess of 10% YoY.
OPERATIONAL CREATIVITY
Meets business challenges with unconventional solutions. Increased leads by 50% without increasing ad spend, focusing on operations (improving the quality of digital product descriptions and implementing dynamic pricing). Turned around and digitized a two-sided marketplace by shifting focus from vendors to buyers and reducing operational complexity.
ANALYTICAL PROBLEM SOLVING
Grounds business decisions in solid analyses. Identifies potential for growth and performance improvement including profitability and salesforce effectiveness. Developed numerous financial models for different business applications. Strengthened the analytical capabilities of a company by stabilizing and growing its data science team and implementing Tableau Software.
COMMUNICATION AND NEGOTIATION
Drives internal and external communication to create and sustain change momentum. Creates transparency and healthy relationships to find solutions which add value for all parties involved. Fluent in English, German and Portuguese. Negotiated multi-year and multi-million euro lease contracts for new retail stores as well as pre-sales contracts over single batches of hundreds of young used cars. Reopened difficult negotiations with a German works council to ensure the
implementation of a new lead management software in its ideal form.
ADAPTABILITY AND FLEXIBILITY
Thrives in diverse cultures and new or changing environments. Detects and embraces need for change. Served as member of management teams across industries. Worked in Europe, the United States, and Brazil.
PAST WORK (SELECTED)
BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION FOR A LEADING EUROPEAN CAR LEASING AND FLEET MANAGEMENT COMPANY
I spearheaded the transformation program from (1) a central remarketing value driver perspective across all European countries and (2) a German business unit perspective across multiple value drivers including sales, procurement, repair / maintenance / tires, insurance, remarketing, finance, HR and IT.
We successfully changed an operations-focused B2B remarketing organization into a commercially savvy B2C/B2B remarketing powerhouse, adding millions of euros to the client's bottom line.
BUILT THE REMARKETING FUNCTION FOR A GERMAN CAR SUBSCRIPTION START-UP
My contribution included the development and implementation of a remarketing strategy aligned with the start-ups corporate strategy. I designed and implemented solid remarketing processes, hired first staff and developed business with international wholesale buyers for young used cars.
Moreover, I personally sold hundreds of cars to get the business going.
BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION FOR A LEADING GERMAN B2B USED CAR MARKETPLACE
We turned the marketplace around by developing and implementing a novel business strategy shifting the focus to buyers' needs (vehicle description, pricing, sales channel segmentation, process speed and claims handling) and launching a revolutionary vendor-side product for trade-in cars.
As a result, we were able to revive the business and generate sustainable revenue growth rates in excess of 10% YoY.
INTERIM CFO FOR A GERMAN ONLINE ADVERTISING START-UP
I served as Interim CFO during a successful change of ownership period. In addition to supporting financial planning and the due diligence process, I was able to strengthen my client's finance function, e.g., by hiring new finance staff, introducing proper receivables management - leading to a significantly improved cash position and increasing the quality and speed of monthly financial reporting. On top, I provided the company with multiple debt financing options (factoring, line of credit, venture debt) for different business scenarios.
POST-ACQUISITION-INTEGRATION FOR A GLOBAL ONLINE ADVERTISING NETWORK
I owned the execution (PMO) of the post-acquisition integration of a European online video advertising business into a globally operating online advertising network. Our work covered multiple workstreams including sales, marketing, media, delivery and support functions such as finance, HR and tech.
As a result, the acquired business got successfully integrated in the acquirer's existing business units for brand and performance advertising - in the form of a unified brand, go-to-market and operating model combining the best of two worlds.
OTHER MANAGEMENT CONSULTING ENGAGEMENTS
Commercial models for a Swiss pharmaceutical company.
BU strategy for a Swiss pharmaceutical company.
Cost reduction PMO for a European oil & gas company.
Salesforce effectiveness for a German insurance company.
Commercial due diligence support.
