Curriculum Vitae

Professional Positions

09/2022 – present

Team Lead Requirements Engineering
Gothaer Solutions GmbH in Cologne, Germany

Establishment and disciplinary as well as professional leadership of a new team for the development of requirements engineering excellence. My team and I are responsible for the governance of the requirements management process. In this context, we have developed and anchored a requirements management policy within the organization, based on the regulatory requirements for IT in the insurance sector (BaFin/VAIT). Furthermore, we have created and implemented a comprehensive competence development concept for requirements engineers. We also offer project services, thus creating a continuous feedback loop between operational project work, governance, and competence development.

05/2020 – 08/2022

Senior Enterprise IT Architect
Gothaer Systems GmbH in Cologne, Germany

Enterprise and Solution Architect in a large program for the introduction and integration of a new policy administration system. Establishment of architecture management for a team of IT, business, and product architects. In my operational role as the leading IT architect, I created architecture roadmaps and drove various architecture decisions in the interdisciplinary architecture and development team, as well as accompanied the implementations.

Within the central Enterprise Architecture team, I significantly contributed to the conception of a blueprint for the modernization of the company-wide integration architecture. A core concept was Event-Driven Architecture with Kafka as the key technology and Domain-Driven Design as the method for deriving software design. In this context, I guided the communication for implementation with solution architects and developers and, as the leading IT architect, designed solution architectures in projects that aligned with the objectives and accompanied the development.

Additionally, I led a company-wide Community of Practice for IT architecture.

12/2017 – 05/2020

Lead IT Architect and Lead Requirements Engineer
Deutsche Post DHL in Bonn, Germany

Establishment and scaling of a software development approach following SCRUM. Defining the constraints for the application architecture and architecture decisions in close coordination with software architects. Regular requirements analysis, backlog management, and intensive xchange and mediation between product owners, domain experts, and DevOps teams.

Creation of tenders for specialized components, conception of integrations, and management of development. Consultation as an Agile Coach for IT project managers and product managers at the corporate level within the context of efforts towards Agile Transformation.

Setting up an IT project on site in Japan as part of a joint venture between Deutsche Post DHL and Yamato Transport Co., Ltd. Consultancy services included: Definition of business and IT architecture, specification of technical requirements, setting of framework parameters for the IT project, consultancy on requirements management and development processes, recruiting of a locally-based IT project manager in Japan.

07/2012 – 12/2017

IT Architect und Requirements Engineer
Deutsche Post DHL in Bonn, Germany

Creation of architecture blueprints for the development of new IT systems and their embedding in the application landscape.

IT architecture and requirements analysis in various IT projects within the „Innovation“ business area, aiming to implement and evaluate new business models in IT as quickly as possible.

Examination of the IT organization, IT architecture, and requirements management and development processes of target companies within the context of national and international M&A projects.

Development of a situation-appropriate IT governance concept in a direct reporting line to the SVP.

08/2010 – 07/2012

Business Architect
Deutsche Post DHL in Bonn, Germany

Further development of the Enterprise Architecture Management method.

Development and prescription of methods and tool usage for software engineering in a significant strategic transformation program in the parcel business area.

04/2010 – 08/2010

Intern Business Architecture

Deutsche Post DHL in Bonn, Germany

Development of process modeling conventions and a concept for the extension of an existing Enterprise Architecture Framework.

09/2003 – 08/2007

Entrepreneur

Own Company: Mensch+Technik GbR in Cologne

Leading the own company together with my father. Software development, web design, and seminar instruction for C/C++, Java, PHP, MySQL, Macromedia Flash, HTML, Visual Basic, VBA for Excel.

Education and Studies

2018 – 2022PhD (Dr. phil.)
University of Münster
2012 – 2015Business Informatics (M. Sc.)
FernUniversität in Hagen
2011 – 2013Master of Business Administration (MBA) Royal Docks Business School, London Grade: With distinction
2007 – 2010Business Informatics (B. Sc.)
University of Applied Sciences Cologne
Extra-curricular 6-month internship in Business Architecture department at Deutsche Post DHL within the regular study period
2006 – 2007Insurance Specialist (BWV) Provinzial AG With the aim of deepening expertise within the context of independent work for the development of an IT financial advisory system
2004 – 2006University of Applied Sciences Entrance Qualification Abendgymnasium Köln    

Further Education (a selection only)

2024   ISTQB® Certified Tester 

2024   Certified SAFe® 5 Architect

2023   IREB® Certified Professional Requirements Engineering

2022   SAFe® for Architects

2022   Basics of Java Spring Boot

2021   Story Telling for Architects

2021   Apache Kafka – Event Streaming with Java

2021   ISAQB® Training Reduced maintenance costs through evolutionary improvement

2020   ISAQB® Training Domain Driven Design

2018   Agile Software Projekt Management

2017   ISAQB® Certified Professional for Software Architecture Foundation

2014   Certification PRINCE2® Foundation

2011   Service Oriented Architectures

2005   Sun® Certified Java Programmer