About me
I am an accomplished professional in the fields of organisational change, leadership coaching and agile product development. My passion for enacting sustainable improvement is reflected both in the feedback and the success of those who have embarked on the journey with me.
Foundational to my work are innovation, creativity and collaboration. By providing impactful coaching, consulting and training, I guide organisations towards a thriving workforce, delighted customers, and outstanding business results.
My experience and diverse professional background across a broad range of industries have equipped me with deep insights and reliable methods tailored to fit. Among my clients to date are Volkswagen, SumUp, BD Rowa, Bundesdruckerei, European Central Bank, and Siemens.
Recommendations
Agile transition coordinator at Siemens
Having worked with Simon in Agile Transformations in two different Siemens business units already, I can highly recommend him as an agile coach, trainer and mentor. He has a lot of experience, is full of good suggestions but also open to try new approaches. Whatever the transitions required, from training and coaching teams, helping leaders implement new leadership behaviours and strategies to bringing scrum masters, product owners and coaches to the next level, Simon accomplished it. I appreciate his positive attitude and calm nature especially in difficult situations.
Managing director at Volkswagen Future Center Europe
I had the pleasure of working with Simon for several years on various projects focused on change management, leadership coaching, and agile working methods. Throughout our time together, Simon consistently demonstrated exceptional expertise and dedication in all aspects of his work. Simon has a deep understanding of agile methods and a passion for empowering teams to adopt an agile mindset. He posseses excellent communication skills and is able to effectively lead and coach individuals at all levels of an organization. Additionally, Simon is highly skilled in facilitating workshops and training sessions. Simon has a proven track record of success, and is an invaluable asset to any team looking to drive positive change and to achieve goals.
Team lead and project manager at European Central Bank
Simon is a very professional coach. His experience and approach facilitate the change design and implementation. He helped me in building effective teams and in making the adopted Scrum events as focused to the goal as possible. Among the things which I liked the most, I would mention the highlights on factors to be improved. I would recommend Simon for large and difficult change management projects.
Experience
since 2023
Freelance leadership and agility coach
My mission is to guide organisations towards continuous innovation, delighted customers, and a thriving workforce. I achieve this by providing impactful coaching, consulting and training in the contexts of leadership, change management, product strategy, teamwork and personal growth.
2015 - 2023
Agile coach at agile42
agile42 enables sustainable change that equips organisations to achieve higher resilience and keep up with our rapidly changing world. As an agile coach, I worked with clients operating in various industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, finance, security and education.
For instance, I coached Volkswagen's Future Center Europe to grow their leadership capabilities and enable effective collaboration on innovative projects. My mission at SumUp was to strengthen the alignment of the software and hardware development teams and help them deliver more value to their customers. I supported Bundesdruckerei IT with establishing a portfolio system to qualify, execute and monitor their initiatives. My focus with a large software development organisation at Siemens was to establish cross-location organisational change and strategy execution. Also, I led the development of JTI's Agile Champion programme which was rolled out to 20,000 employees and helps them embrace agility in their daily work.
2011 - 2015
Project CTO at Rocket Internet and CTO at Foodpanda
Rocket Internet is a global online venture builder for e-commerce and online marketplaces. At Rocket Internet, I was responsible for the launch of all new projects and up to 100 direct reports in the fields software engineering, project management, system administration and quality assurance. I worked closely with Rocket Internet's technology centres in Portugal and China and hired more than 50 employees. Under my supervision, the teams at Rocket Internet successfully launched HelloFresh, Jabong, Jumia, Linio, Lazada, Zalora and many other projects.
Foodpanda is a global online food delivery service. Together with its affiliated brands, Foodpanda operates in Asia, Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. After moving from Rocket Internet itself to its priority project Foodpanda, I was responsible for assembling and leading a team of 30 software developers, product managers and system engineers. Managing Foodpanda's product development included liasing with 100 stakeholders who represented the needs of different Foodpanda markets.
Interim CTO at various startups
As a freelance consultant and interim CTO, I helped various early-stage startups with creating their product development strategy, planning their software architecture and technological infrastructure, recruiting product and development teams, introducing engineering practices and establishing agile software development methods.
2009 - 2011
Co-founder and CTO at Motivado
With its interactive video coaching, Motivado guides people in finding solutions for personal issues and achieving goals by closing the gap between cost-intensive personal coaching and the general guidebook market. Topics covered by Motivato's products include personal health, relationships, career advancement and parenting.
I co-founded Motivado and was part of a team of diversely skilled people ranging from software developers to psychologists. In a highly agile fashion, we collaborated closely with our customers and users, shipped new product increments frequently and continuously optimised our processes and practices.
Our products have helped many people become happier, healthier and more successful. We have won an award from Germany's Federal Ministry for Economy and Technology.
2001 - 2009
Freelance software developer and illustrator
I started developing software in 1999 and went on to working as a freelance web and software developer, gaining experience mainly in the travel and e-commerce industries. My experience includes frontend and backend development, software architecture, automated testing, rapid prototyping, continuous refactoring, framework development, performance optimisation and user experience design.
One of my clients was mytourclips, a one-stop solution for travellers to exchange travelling experiences, videos and pictures with each other. The platform also offered aggregated travel news and direct trip booking. I managed an extensive refactoring of the existing application on the basis of my framework nacho aimed at improving the product's scalability and extensibility.
I worked as an animator at Inkarnatoons, contributing hand-drawn and digitally post-processed character animations and scenery design to the provocative short movie Judas & Jesus which was released in 2009, was screened at film festivals across the globe and won numerous international film awards.
Qualifications
I am an active member of the Scrum Alliance, the Kanban University and the ORGANIC agility communities.
