• Initiated and structured the implementation of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) for the insurance firm's subsidiary and its three portfolio companies specializing in automotive claim management software and services
• Enhanced ?DORA Gap Analysis? templates provided by the corporate headquarters, significantly improving usability and efficiency while incorporating an ISO 27001 comparison dimension
• Led kick-off sessions to introduce DORA and gap analysis tasks to the portfolio companies, fostering a smooth transition and understanding of the new compliance requirements
• Completed the ?DORA Gap Analysis? for the subsidiary, for the IT governance relevant requirements
• Provided additional expertise to the subsidiary's IT Governance team, ensuring alignment of yearly Corporate IT Assessments with the newly initiated DORA project

• To address a regulatory audit finding, conducted a global data lineage analysis for each countries? payment system flows in relation to their interfaces to the main transaction filtering system and follow up the gaps with the respective business domains and architecture teams
• Took over the further processing of documented transaction filtering related data gaps, both in governance and operative compliance topics
• Managed the classification and progression of productive data quality issues in the areas of transaction filtering and prepared the monthly steering committee updates

• Worked at the Cybersource Card Present unit?s PMO organization to support the resolution of postacquisition integration related issues of Payworks:
  • Aligning Payworks? existing software assets with Visa?s technology portfolio and standards
  • To close the IT compliance gaps in relation to Visa Corporate IT policies, established knowledgemanagement on existing hardware/ software/ process issues and following up the resolution actions with Visa Corporate IT organization in England and US
  • As part of measures to strenghten the IT Security Operations Center (SOC), coordinated the resolution of IT security findings belonging to the whole Cybersource Card Present organization (coming from 8 source systems) on a daily basis. Implemented a customized daily report that pulls data from multiple Tableau and QlikView reports, to enable consistent and accurate tracking of the security findings
• Acted as PMO Program Lead for the Future of the Platform program which contained 9 projects organized using Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). The program?s aim was to improve DevOps practices for the technical teams as well as to complete the migration of various infrastructure components to Visa?s own data centers and to its cloud service providers.

• Worked as a Vendor Manager to launch and structure the program workstream to review and optimize the third-party (vendor) pass-through contracts of PBS, which had a total annual volume of ~90 million Euro
• Assisted in the analysis and approval process of due invoices belonging to the pass-through contracts

- Supported the set-up of new workplace infrastructure for the schoolteachers and the principal office.
- Supported the setup of a new network interface to Hessische Zentrale für Datenverarbeitung regarding a teacher/student database.
- Sparring partner for the school management for various IT demands.

• Prepared and managed the lifecycle of 11 complex Change Requests (CRs) from requirements gathering till go-live for HCM. HCM was serving 50+ countries, used by 2nd and 3rd Line of Defense to review/ decide/ report on about 1 million transactions/ year, which were marked as a ?hit? against the current sanctions or anti-money laundering lists
• The CRs (which were prepared in accordance with bank?s own ITIL processes) have been on a wide range of topics including enabling the global consistency of decision-making process (despite deviating local regulations), major improvements to the management information reporting including improved field level mappings of SWIFT and SEPA transactions, user rights enhancements and other functional and nonfunctional improvements on usability and system performance.
• Aligned and worked with the global AFC and Global Messaging Operations business units, their IT organization and the software vendor for the lengthy preparation and bank-internal testing phases of the CRs.
• Formed a governance structure and processed the backlog of several hundred active/ inactive CRs in JIRA
• Supported the transition of the AFC IT organization from traditional project management to agile, utilizing Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe); in this context acted as Epic Owner for numerous topics
• Significant achievements:
  • Generated a 7-digit Euro cost saving due to the consolidation and refinement of CRs
  • Successfully addressed the relevant US (OFAC) regulatory audit findings with the go-live of the CRs

• Coordinated the contract changes of 1000 global high-risk vendor services (selected based on their risk profile), to ensure their compliance mainly to bank?s newest IT security control framework based on ISO 27001 and to some other MaRisk-Outsourcing, BAIT and GDPR related regulations, due to a European Central Bank audit finding.
• Aligned the relevant business and procurement contacts for each contract, single-handedly drafted the contract changes and got the appropriate legal approvals, initiated the change on the vendor side and coordinated the rest negotiations till the contract changes were executed and the remaining gaps were riskaccepted.
• Supported the resolution of gaps between the IT security control frameworks of the vendors? and the bank.
• The contract and vendor risk management tool landscape were based on SAP Ariba
• Established a feedback-channel to correct wrong/missing data at the golden sources of the bank
• Significant achievements:
  • On time, according to planned scope and under-budget (mainly due to the reduced cost for external law firms and translation agencies, as most of their planned work could be insourced) completion of the project, despite the complexity of geographical spread and significant number of stakeholders with different interests
  • Successful closure of the European Central Bank audit finding

• Reporting to the CEO, managed the IT department with 5 direct reports and 25 IT vendors (of which 10 critical)
• Acted as a single point of contact for German and Turkish banking regulatory bodies, Akbank T.A.?. (parent company in Turkey) and Akbank AG internal audit departments and directed the follow-up activities to ensure MaRisk/BAIT compliance.
• As Outsourcing Officer, supervised the selection, control and relationship management for all (IT and non-IT) vendors of the bank
• Responsibilities included maintenance of a small onsite data center and local end-user infrastructure, Identity and Access Management as well as IT Service Management (as per ITIL guidelines) for all software applications and telephony/ printer landscape, maintaining the CMDB, license management for all banking and end-user applications, executing IT Security controls, operative and strategic IT Procurement with relevant contract management activities, Business Continuity Management including the management of distant emergency workspaces and execution of continuity tests, acting as a sparring partner to the board other departments in all operational IT matters and side business projects (e.g. EMIR, FATCA)
• Conducted a new Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) system selection
• Selected a new vendor for the Network Vulnerability Management and coordinated the implementation
• Directed a lengthy vendor selection process for the new online/mobile banking platform
• Selected a new external print provider and coordinated the updates to the customer communication content
• Enhanced the Anti-Money Laundering systems, utilizing NICE Actimize (expanding the suspicious activity monitoring coverage, introducing a new name list vendor, implementation of a new roles/rights concept)
• Directed the make-or-buy analysis for the digitalization of the credit department's complete workflow; created the customized JIRA based solution architecture and initiated the in-house implementation project
• Initiated and directed the SEPA Implementation project till successful completion. Major tasks were software/vendor selection and the testing of the customized solution at bank?s premises
• Coordinated the Windows XP to 7/8 upgrade
• Significant achievements:
  • Stabilized the IT Organization regarding the team, major systems and the main vendors as a continuation of the post-merger activities of the bank (Akbank Netherlands had merged into Akbank AG in mid-2012)
  • Did major improvements to the operational processes and relevant documentation for business continuity, data center, desktop infrastructure, core banking platform and related management information systems

• Coordinated two Sybase subcontractor firms in Germany and India for design, development and testing of the quite complicated software requirements including PCI compliance based on Sybase Mobiliser Platform.
• Managed all aspects of the Sybase involvement in the complex System Integration, Security and Performance Tests that were executed by the partner system integrator firm in Russia, spread over multiple environments.
• Coordinated the support effort for the VimpelCom?s own User Acceptance Tests that were run in their premises.
• Successfully assisted the productive launch of the system Russia wide.

• Led project till successful launch in Poland and acceptance of the pilot mobile payment product by Citibank on a global scale, as well as giving service management oversight to the productive system post launch.
• Supported the set-up and coordinated the execution of System Integration and User Acceptance Tests at two different client locations.
• Coordinated release management and packaging activities with the client.
• Managed the Citi Data Center - Sybase Hub setup for the SMS messaging subcomponent.
• Coordinated the Sybase activities associated with the bank?s handover of the Sybase Mobiliser Platform to their global production support team

• Coordinated the startup and scoping related activities and designed the future solution architecture for the project to implement an internet bank for Germany.
• Initiated the project via coordinating the client, the system integrator and Oracle project teams.
• Coordinated the activities for the project scoping and business requirements capturing at both project locations via interviewing all relevant client members and conducting product walk-through sessions.
• Did project planning for the implementation project together with the system integrator managers.
• Directed the solution architecture design activities and prepared the final official deliverable package addressed to client?s executive team.

• Led the project from the initiation phase till successful go-live.
  
• Agreed the contractual changes and the project plan with the client.
• Coordinated the requirements gathering and documentation phase which involved the client, the data center (Finanz Informatik Technologie Service), onsite and offshore Oracle resources.
• Monitored offshore development and coordinated onsite preparation activities for User Acceptance Tests.
• Managed User and Operational Acceptance Tests as well as the successful release to production

• Led the project from initiation till successful go-live (as bankofscotland.nl) on a tight total timeline of 8 months.
• Took part in the contract negotiations and initiated the project, set up the onsite Oracle project team.
• Did estimations and project planning involving both traditional (for the core banking) and agile (for the internet banking) delivery methods; the project involved the onsite implementation team, 2 offshore (India) development groups, onsite client team and the data center/hosting provider (Finanz Informatik Technologie Service).
• Coordinated a time-critical requirements gathering phase.
• Planned and agreed on the overall solution architecture including all external interfaces.
• Finalized the overall test strategy along with client and data center test managers and actively supported the execution of Integration, Security, Performance and User Acceptance Testing.
• Interacted daily with the client and the data center company project managers throughout the project.
• Monitored and reported the progress to stakeholders till project closure.

• Established working rules and deescalated the relationship between Oracle, the bank, and the German data center (Finanz Informatik Technologie Service) firms, which have not worked together before.
• Coordinated the planning and proper execution of the complex test phases (Integration, Security, Performance, Breakpoint and User Acceptance Testing) in 3 project locations, together with several test managers from the bank and the data center, till successful launch of the bank as bankofscotland.de.
• Supported the execution of external IT Security Certification/Test of the whole system.
• Implemented the license management based on usage monitoring.
• Supported the setting up of Business Continuity Management processes.
• Interacted with the offshore technical experts to resolve several issues encountered in the testing phases
• In the later stages of the project and at the post-launch period took the coordination of the Service Management as part of the transition to the support phase.
• Worked on the implementation of the ITIL based productive Incident, Change and Release Management procedures together with the counterpart service managers

•  Led the technical testing team where several locations-based and telematics services were being introduced.
  
• Coordinated the technical (Performance and Operation Readiness) test teams for the whole Release 2.
• Coordination effort included the following tasks: Test planning, selection of the test management software, setting up the test environments (established in NAVTEQ?s Chicago office), test conditions and scripts preparation, test execution and reporting.
• Acted as the counterpart to the client?s Test Coordinator

• Directed the Acceptance (Test) Project for the CCP 3.2 Release where processing of Eurex deliveries resulting from UK products are integrated into the existing CCP platform.
• Coordinated the creation of the acceptance test approach in coordination with various business departments.
• Planned 3 complicated test phases spread over 6 months which are having different test content and to be executed on different technical environments consecutively.
• Coordinated the end-to-end test execution, covering 12 systems connected to the CCP core platform, involving Germany and England as main locations.
• Represented the project status in weekly Issue, SIR and Status meetings.

• Coordinated the development activities for the subproject "Frontend? where a new J2EE based front-office-tool for the bank?s sales force was introduced. The tool was developed by a subcontractor, which had onsite and offshore resources.
• Did estimations and detailed project plan for the development activities.
• Acted as an interface between the related functional and technical teams of the client and the subcontractor.
• Coordinated and monitored the technical design and the implementation.

• Worked on process improvements for the Requirements Gathering & Analysis Team and initiated the implementation of an IT Governance model.
• Analyzed the existing process flow of the Requirements Gathering Team and produced optimization and improvement strategies.
• Created ?As-Is? and ?To-Be? checklists, process descriptions and flows.
• Coordinated the IT Governance software selection effort by defining selection matrixes and organizing briefing sessions with the possible vendors and the bank?s senior management

• Conducted a technical due diligence review for the DigiDispo application
• Interviewed key client personnel from various departments
• Did analysis on the current situation, considering the AS/400 based host system, the handheld devices that are used for scanning and data transfer, the communication servers and the WLAN/ GPRS/internet network infrastructure
• Did benchmarking for other possible handheld devices of different vendors
  
• Wrote the review document and presented the results to the CIO of the client