Director PreSales Germany & Austria @ Pure Storage
Experienced Pre-Sales / Technology Sales Leader operating on Country and Regional level. Growing companies in size and LoB. Coaching and Developing. Focussed on optimising and transforming SE and TS organisations.
Skilled in People Management, Organisational Transformation, Data Analytics, Storage Area Network (SAN), Enterprise Software, Partner Relationship Management, Storage, and Go-to-market Strategy.
05/2022 –
01/2021 –04/2022
Forming a PreSales Organisation for Infrastructure, Cloud and Ai business. Growing and winning customers in the holistic solution stack
05/2018 –
Focus on customer centricity, transformation towards new solutions and optimizing Sales coverage
Q2/2018 – 10/2018
Acting Regional Vice President Central Region
Turn around revenue decline, catching up Q1, overachieving H1 and introducing Sales methodology
2016 – 2018
2010 – 2016
People Manager with disciplinary responsibility
Focus on extending the adoption rate & portfolio coverage for customer and moving the value chain to a problem solver / trusted advisor
2008 – 2010
2007 – 2008
2005 – 2008
Turning Vodafone from prospect to customer with global customer coverage and adequate technical and sales processes. Managing indirectly multi country organisations.
2003 – 2005
2003 – 2005
June 1997 – March 1999
Presentation & Public speaking
Sometimes a customer or a prospect gives us a gift, he donates some of his lifetime to listen to us. He decided to do so instead of going home to his family, instead of drinking coffee with colleagues, instead of just browsing the Internet and buying things he needs.
How do we work in such a situation? Is this a business as usual situation, slide deck d-84 of the just downloaded material or even worse, a go in unprepared situation? Honestly if we think so we should consider to simply cancel the meeting OR change our mindset.
If we appear in such a meeting, we have the chance to change the world a bit. We can change the view of a person, the way this person acts and the future by changing the decision he is going to do.
If we want to have an effect we cannot start with the slides, we have to be curious about the persons in the meeting, who are they, where are they coming from, what do they want to achieve, what motivates them every day. If we understand this, we can understand what of our package generates values to them.
Maybe we just know the market better, because we see more different companies, and we can deliver insight what challenges and obstacles they can expect driven by the market or on the journey to their specific targets. Often, we can deliver insight that they were not even aware that they need it, but when we link it properly to their goals this turns into value.
This is also true if we have the task to show technology or solutions. If we preselect what fits to the specific journey and where these pieces help to achieve these targets more efficient, faster or with less risk this can generate this link, too.
Even if we have a large audience where we not know anyone at all we can use this logic combined with good assumptions to make our public speech more related to the audience. There is an easy way to analyze, understand and adjust to maximize results.in a given environment.
Sales & Presales management
Hopefully you have never experienced what most people have. You made an incredibly good job; you are proud of your achievements and you have gone further than usually related to your role. Your expectation? Someone coming over and thanks for what you did., maybe even combined with a reward. and reality? Most likely you hear nothing, no one will take notice or feel it's relevant to link the achievement with your engagement, in many companies it is even worse, you will then have to justify the hours you worked, why you haven't answered all the mails in parallel and so on. If appointed leaders sometimes find themselves in such situation, we understand that people in our responsibility probably sometimes feel the same.
This brings us to the fundament pjs of real leadership. Quite often the leader is just the person standing for the combined achievements of a team, mostly the number they made. But this is not leadership. The leader is in front of the people, he sees and recognizes efforts and he say thank you. A leader also understand that he cannot directly change the way he is treated in a company, but he can set code how people operate in his team or department and how he operates.
To grow a team, to grow a company substantially and over a longer period it is needs more than a few good decisions, it needs investment in the people, time, effort and money a leader spends to understand, develop and to put the right people to the right position. In sports this is a no brainer, this is what we naturally expect from the trainer, so why not in business? The logic is almost the same. You got defined resources, you can make changes in a given way and you are responsible for how you use the people to achieve the goals.
And here is the point where a natural separation appears between leaders who has been appointed and leaders who are leaders... and are appointed., natural leaders.
Natural leaders know that the generate the setup for success and this includes give directions in a clear way and train the people even if not appreciated. Again, like sports, if the coach cannot articulate what the team should do, and what every single individual should do the team will not play according to the plan. If a sportsman stops training, because it is so hard, it's not a real competition is whatever reason, his capabilities will start decreasing immediately, not really measurable in the beginning, but without any questions over the time.
Combined with a set of well-developed material and processes it is possible to understand, develop and leverage the capabilities and increase the business benefits of a given organization.
Coaching
A key responsibility in management is the development of the team. Obviously, we take care hiring people and asses the skills and capabilities. And let’s face it, regardless how good your hiring process is, people can always grow…
As you run your business you understand the changing needs in capabilities. Customer requirements change. Technologies evolve. Market demands refocus. Now it’s on you to understand those requirements and ensure you have the right weapons for success.
Maybe you need to develop more technical skills in a certain area. Or you need to develop more business skills to convince your customers. And mostly you need to improve soft skills to drive smoother.
And here comes the coach. As a coach we need to understand the capabilities of our employees – the obvious and the hidden ones. We need to understand what drives emotional success experience of the individual.
Now we are back on hiring. Hiring diversity gives more options of development, more different levers for success, more fun. With diversity hiring we have now the capabilities to develop the team and grow for success and fun.
Planning kicks in as we develop a plan how to grow from the stable ground, the fundament of current success, to the desired state of the future. And let’s be clear. This is not something you can force or simply order. Usually it’s good to be very transparent with the team about the future needs. Be clear on where you are changing. Be the first in the change. There will be talent willing to make the transformation and do a change, too. Consider this person very seriously.
Usually willingness beats capabilities. Someone willing to grow will work hard to make the change a success. Someone unwilling to change will not leverage the capabilities. Let the willing person go first. Back the person. Celebrate successes. And lead the way in the change.
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