Kai-Olaf's life
Kai-Olaf's life
- 1960born in Leipzig – my hometown, a safe home, with my father in the bosom of St. Thomas Church, influenced at an early age by the competitive sport of “swimming”
- 1975 Escape to the Federal Republic of Germany - the first break in my life, a new beginning - never regretted!
- 1980
- University entrance qualification at the Goetheschule in Hanover. After that it was supposed to become medicine, and after a few breaks and orientation it became mechanical engineering. Did I regret it? No!
- It's what I really like and enjoy, although I don't want to miss the time in the hospital
- 1983
- Started in Munich at the TU studying mechanical engineering
- 1986
- An almost ½ year internship at VW in Peru – the first time outside Europe, immersing myself in a world that was foreign at the time, it had a massive impact on me
- 1989
- Completion of my studies, at the end of my studies I knew what I wanted!
- Implementation – from development to production. How do you do that? What is important? What can be improved? These were and still are my topics today. Are there parallels to my original desire for medicine? I think yes, improving, staying fit, that is important for the survival of the human organism as well as for companies.
- When I am asked who influenced me, it was Prof. J. Milberg. Working at his institute was simply exciting and involved a lot of freedom. And, everything that was thought up had to be built as a prototype/model - a very good exercise.
- 1989
- Started at Planring System GmbH in Friedrichshafen, a subsidiary of ZF Friedrichshafen AG and MAAG AG (Switzerland) in the area of production and logistics. For the first time I realized that it is not enough to make machines faster and better, but that the entire system has to work. I also learned about accounting. Logistics without debits and credits doesn't work!
- 1994
- Moving to the company Ploenzke AG (later CSC Ploenzke AG) and thus finally entering management consulting. In the almost 11 years I was able to fill many roles and tasks, they were very exciting years with many great colleagues and I learned that people matter to the overall system. Changes and improvements only work if people want and can. At CSC Ploenzke I had the opportunity to set up the Automotive practice with other colleagues. From 1998 onwards we broke down the structures together and developed the automotive topic throughout Germany
- 1997
- Co-founders of Forum Kiedrichs, an initiative by CSC Ploenzke and partners under the motto “Whoever demands, must support”, personalities from business, science and politics expressed their intention to mentor start-ups with their personal experiences and their own in a joint charter Network to be there to help.
- 2000
- Lecturer at the Nürtingen/Geislingen University of Applied Sciences, Institute for Automotive Economics with Prof. Diez - I am still grateful for the experiences today and I haven't let go of this job since then
- 2000
- First founding of the company KOD Power, the practical consultancy with a focus on advising small businesses on improving internal processes and structures
- 2001
- He moved to the DHBW Stuttgart as a lecturer and has remained there to this day
- 2004
- Training to become a behavior trainer at the “Konstanz Seminars”, I wanted to finally understand what drives us as humans and why we are the way we are (one step closer, I really didn’t understand it)
- 2005
- Switched to Capgemini and stayed for 7.5 years. I learned the topic of “strategy consulting” and my heart is always focused on implementation. Many studies that I initiated at Capgemini and that are still relevant today date back to this time. In particular, the last study on the topic of technological change in the automotive industry is still relevant, and we can currently observe the behavioral patterns that have developed. I also learned that massive communication hurdles have to be overcome so that the different levels in the company can talk and understand each other (if the captain of the Titanic had listened to his crew...) - do you know that?
- 2012
- Change to Techedge as Managing Director in Germany - a new adventure has begun! Change to a small company in Germany. The challenge of developing a company gripped me.
- To date, we have jointly built up Techedge's position in Germany, increased sales - in short, we have grown. We were able to convince large customers of our services, position ourselves in new topics and with a new team we are now ready to take the next step
- 2020
- I actually wanted to go on our big tour with my wife – One Year – One Road. Take a year off and make your dreams come true.
- For known reasons, this trip could not take place in 2020. No problem, then we'll do what was originally intended for afterwards.
- We are establishing the new “Digital Advisory” pillar within the Techedge Group in Germany – strategic advice for our customers in digital transformation.
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