12 years ago, I had a job interview with two people in a meeting room in a shared office space in Stuttgart. They wanted to create a new location for the Microsoft Gold Partner Alegri in Stuttgart. Alegri was a young and ambitious company with about 80 people. Eventually, I signed the contract and started as the third employee in Stuttgart as a Senior Consultant.

Alegri Stuttgart was a striking success story. Together with a great team we expanded the location Stuttgart to about 40 employees within the following 10 years. The most important companies in the region became our customers: Daimler, Bosch, Porsche, EnBW, Carl Zeiss, Liebherr, Hugo Boss and many more. But the most important part was the fact that we always kept our open company culture and had a lot of fun.

As we grew, I took up different roles and responsibilities: In 2009 I became Managing Consultant and created the Development team; in 2015 I became Senior Manager with the responsibility for different teams. Finally, I was offered the post as the Regional Director for Stuttgart and the region South-West when my former boss and mentor took over the role as the CSO in 2017.

In 2018 we made significant changes by shifting the responsibilities from local business units to global business lines and I took over the business line Development that later became Agile IT – DevOps & Innovation. In the same year, Alegri was acquired by Devoteam S.A. – a French technology consultant company focused on SMAC: Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud. Devoteam is a purely digital player and with about 7000 people a very dynamic and ambitious company in Europe. Currently being one of the most important partners for Google, Service Now and Red Hat, they have also been striving to become one of the most important partners for Microsoft. Devoteam has a great leadership team and I found a lot of friends when cooperating with the other entities in Europe. I am convinced that Devoteam faces a bright future and I wish them all the best!

But now – after 12 years – it’s time for me to move on. Thus, I handed in my resignation last week and will start a new journey on the 1st of April.

There are multiple reasons for this step. First and foremost, the strategy of Devoteam is not truly in synch with my own strategy. Their strategy for the next years is compelling and I’m sure they will be very successful with it, but as a Developer by heart I have some different visions on how to be successful in consulting with a strong developer focus.
The second reason is that I don’t believe in matrix organizations. Matrix organizations are against my conception of ownership and decentralized decision making. The role as the Offer Director for Agile IT in Germany I was offered is therefore not a good fit for me.

I really think Devoteam is a great company and I wish them all the best. And the same is true of all my friends at Alegri, who have partly been my friends for more than 12 years now. I wish you all the best and a successful future.

So, what will I do next? I will stay in technology consulting. I think consulting is an industry – like any other industry – that faces disruption. When all companies will have been digitally transformed in a few years, how will this influence the way consulting is seen? If the software vendors directly partner with the clients, how do we fit in the picture? How do we work with pure technology companies and software vendors and deliver value to both? How do we scale this? I have known this business for 20 years now and I believe that I can provide some answers to these questions, and I hope I can bring them to life in the next years.

Stay tuned – I will update you in April on where my journey will continue.