Moin! That's how we say "hello" in Northern Germany. That's where I was born and where my heart still resides. My grandmother worked at Commodore back when it was in its prime in the 80ies. Through savings, a company discount and the advent of Christmas, my father got his hands on an original "breadbox" Commodore 64. Looking back, it is obvious how it set the course for the rest of my life.

Initially fascinated by games, I quickly discovered the fun of creating my own games. Starting small with "number guessing", but progressively becoming more curious about sprites, peeks and pokes. From there it was a wild ride via various computers (Amiga 500 anyone?), programming languages, database systems and internships to a postgrad degree in Business IT. At some point I even became one of the few authorities on online banking in Germany.

After academia I was lured into strategy consulting by the prospect of getting insights into a variety of industries and companies. In those years I learned a lot about solving problems, managing projects and working with different stakeholders on ideas. But the tech angle was missing and at some point the siren call of tech became too loud to ignore. So I did what you do: I relocated my family to the other side of the globe (Melbourne) and joined a telco on their quest to learn from high-growth software companies. "Software is eating the world" was still fresh and that telco was hungry.

A few acquisitions, a startup accelerator and an API program later, I followed another call. This time from the Pacific Northwest to join a software company and help them with their strategy work. And that's what I do these days.

I've had strategy in my title on and off for two decades. For me it boils down to helping people plan for the future. That has me sitting between many disciplines, wearing as many hats. I'm most comfortable at the intersections of executives and execution, tech and business, engineering and marketing. I do a good job at that – good enough for the U.S. to attest my extraordinary abilities and achievements in the field of software strategy.

I have a family of passport collectors. Between my wife, two kids and me, there are nine passports, which caused us trouble more than once at airports – different ones for departure and arrival, you know. Who else but the Bourne family has a drawer dedicated to passport?

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