Understanding businesses
My career has taken me from Procter & Gamble to Managing Director roles at St Jude Medical and Abbott, and later at MEDIAN, Schülke and ESMT. In these roles, I took responsibility for Finance, Operations and HR – as CFO, COO or CHRO, in international environments as well as in the German mid-market. Over the years, I have been responsible for organisations across up to 22 countries and with revenues of up to two billion euros.
This breadth continues to shape how I view businesses today. Numbers and processes matter. So do people, structures, interests, history and the often unspoken rules within an organisation. I aim to understand how a business actually works before judging what should change.
LinkedIn Profile
Making change work
Change has been a recurring part of my leadership work. It has included new structures, shared services, standardisation, automation, process outsourcing, integrations and digital management systems. At MEDIAN, this included the further development of central operating models, the expansion of a group-wide service centre, the preparation for the introduction of IFRS and the post-merger integration of Priory Group. At Schülke, the focus also included developing management systems and preparing SAP and transformation initiatives.
Working with shareholders, banks and M&A processes has repeatedly been part of my responsibility. I continue to apply this experience today, including in due-diligence processes. To me, transformation is a leadership task, not merely a project plan. It becomes effective when decisions are made, accountability is clear and new ways of working are adopted in daily practice.
Involving people
The longer I have experienced leadership, the clearer it has become that change rarely fails because of a lack of expertise. More often, it is about roles, collaboration, different perspectives, or issues that everyone notices but no one addresses. As a Labour Director and Managing Director, I have experienced how closely business decisions, leadership and collaboration are connected.
This is why I deliberately complemented my executive HR experience with an Executive Coaching Certificate from INSEAD. Today, I work both in one-to-one coaching and with leadership teams and management bodies on roles, collaboration and effectiveness. For me, coaching is not the opposite of clear leadership. It complements executive experience with the ability to make patterns visible and help people develop their own answers and decisions.
Exploring possibilities
Nine years abroad and work across different industries have shaped my perspective on different markets, cultures and people. I have always been interested in new technologies when they create real opportunities to organise work differently and better. Automation, digitalisation and, today, artificial intelligence have therefore long been areas I explore intensively.
Today, through my Paclant GmbH, I work as a consultant, interim manager and executive coach. At Genpact, I support international transformation and AI projects as Senior Advisor Life Science, bringing a CFO perspective to client engagements. I also give talks, moderate workshops and explore as an author how AI can improve decision-making and leadership.
