Advisor by background, Operator by behaviour
About me
Roots in the family business.
It all started in my family's business with twenty employees. There I learned early what entrepreneurial responsibility and customer focus really mean, and how you adapt when both your customers and your people change.
Large and small, from corporate to founder.
As a strategy consultant and in leadership roles, I have worked with many leading companies across industries: medical technology and packaging, consumer goods and software, logistics and metals processing, international groups as well as the mid-market. I know how things are done at scale, and which parts of that genuinely help a smaller company, which parts are too much, and which parts only slow things down.
Always the same question.
What does excellence mean in this function and in this company, and how do you actually get there with your own teams? At companies like A.T. Kearney, Sonova, Amcor and the Lufthansa Group, and in projects with Unilever, P&G, Maersk and Porsche, I have seen what excellence looks like in practice. From procurement through supply chain, sales, development and product, to strategy, leadership and building entire business systems. Along the way, partly through own mistakes, I learned how critical it is to match the approach to the maturity and the culture of the company.
The Foundation.
University in New Zealand, England and Germany. PhD in Management with focus on organisational behaviour, certified in Lean Systems, MIT AI for Business Strategy. And, because it shapes the way I work: I am a passionate mountaineer and former competitive athlete.
How I operate
There is nothing so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.
Peter Drucker
Pragmatic entry.
Small steps with fast impact, which build trust and show that change is doable. I roll up my sleeves and work alongside you, making sure that the organisation continues the new routines by itself. What comes from the outside is the view of the whole and the knowledge of what is already standard elsewhere.
Better than yesterday.
Strategy matters, results matter more. I make sure everyone knows clearly where we are going. And that we don't get stuck in big projects, but deliver concrete, visible changes in the daily work in short, fast sprints that take us to the goal step by step. Real strategy starts with the goal: where do we play, how do we win, which few breakthroughs count, and what capabilities do we need for them?
Tools as means, not ends.
Systems thinking, problem solving, excellence models, methods for strategic focus and for continuous improvement: I bring all of it, without the jargon and without treating method as an matter of faith. The tool serves the result, not the other way round.
Sometimes the jargon does help for a first fit check. My focus areas:
1
Growth and value creation Growth strategy, sales strategy, value creation plan, go-to-market, commercial excellence, sales playbooks, voice of customer, total revenue management, pipeline and funnel management, opportunity management, global key account management, value selling, sales effectiveness, international expansion, pricing, margin optimisation, contract management, lean sales, customer satisfaction/NPS/CSAT, customer loyalty, churn, Salesforce.com
2
Strategy and implementation Classic strategy frameworks, scenario planning, Hoshin Kanri, Play-to-Win, target operating model, OKR, Obeya, visual and daily management, Kata coaching
3
Product and development Launch excellence / new product introduction, product lifecycle management, design thinking, jobs-to-be-done, stage-gate, risk management, lean innovation, phase-out, SKU reduction
4
Executive management & transformation Corporate governance, Team #1, leadership routines, control towers, change management, immunity to change, PMO, structured problem solving, KPIs and scorecards, maturity frameworks, project management
5
Business Systems & Continuous Improvement Toyota Way, Gemba, Hoshin Kanri, Obeya, lean sales, lean development, A3 thinking, visual and daily management, Kaizen, value stream analysis, value stream mapping, standard work, Coaching Kata, leadership standard work, (visual) project management.
Advisor by background, operator by behaviour.
I combine sound method with experience in operational leadership, transformation and strategy consulting, across global groups, family businesses and start-ups. More strategic depth than a pure operator, more hands-on reality than a big consultancy.
With experienced partners.
Most mandates don't need a large team. They need someone who diagnoses the problem correctly, aligns the leadership and enables the teams. Where extra capacity is needed, I draw on a network of experienced senior experts.
I don't solve your problems for you or for your teams. I solve them with you. So that next time you can do it yourselves.
PUBLICATIONS
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„A Story of Growth: Kaizen in Commercial Areas“, in: The Kaizen Culture Paradox, E. Coimbra, 2025
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„Interorganizational Power in Outsourcing Relationships“, Doctoral thesis on the dynamics of complex customer-supplier relationships, Victoria University of Wellington, 2007.
HOW I LOOK AT THINGS
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Wachstum fängt damit an, nicht zu verlieren (Growth starts with not losing).
The competition doesn't always win with better products. Often they simply pick up what you drop. On revenue heroes and revenue villains.
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Der Umsatz-Affe und die Silo-WG (The revenue monkey and the silo flat-share).
Sales is measured on revenue but has limited control of the drivers that matter. Everyone delivers their piece; the whole thing still comes in under plan
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Führung ist Teamsport (Leadership is a team sport).
Wobbling results, more meetings, more scramble, less ownership. It is rarely a lack of talent. What's missing is the operating system that turns a set of functions into a team.
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