About Me, your CTO Coach
I ❤️ coding. Always have. I’m a nerd.
I’ve teached myself coding in a department store in the 80s to write my own computer games. Those computers that appeared on every desk were amazing machines, we felt there were no limits on what they can do.
Working my way through university with distributed systems and AI as main topics, social engineering myself to be the first philosophical computer science student (because I’ve also studied philosophy) at my university I got on the internet at the beginning of the 90s. What a world had opened. Unbound opportunities! We’ve come a long way from me writing chat bots in the early 1990s in C deployed on a VAX mainframe to Node.js applications running in the cloud. I have been there every second.
Joining internet startups when no one had internet was interesting and a challenge. I soon became a manager, because I was told to hire more students. After some years I founded my first real startup with VC backing. From there it was a rollercoaster ride as an engineering manager and CTO through small and large companies - in the end we successfully sold a startup which enabled me to become a CTO coach.
I did enjoy helping my direct reports to grow and succeed. When I was CTO in several fast growing startups, I wished for a coach myself - someone to talk to because there is always something left you can’t talk about, and someone to strengthen me through very difficult times.
So I grabbed the opportunity to become a CTO coach when basically no one was doing it. I’ve been coaching CTOs for 8 years now and I still love it.
My dream came true. Now I can help you make your dreams come true.
- 40+ years of software development experience
- 25+ years of engineering management experience
- 80+ CTOs and founders mentored and coached
- 3x startups founder
Why I Love Being a CTO Coach
“I worked with Stephan for over a year. He coached me through a massive growth period of our company, asking the right questions as well as giving constructive advice based on his profound knowledge and experience in the field. He helped me to grow and become the professional I am today. I highly recommend working with him”
- Sebastian Galonska, CTO & Co-Founder, Kontist
I have been coaching people for a long time. First I’ve coached other developers and then my direct reports on how they can grow, develop and how their career could look like. Finding out what someone want is often the most difficult part - often it took us quite some time to find out what the best next step could look like. Then it’s good to have someone with experience who can see your strengths - sometimes hidden.
Schedule a Welcome Call
Take action now! If you're a CTO, CPTO or VP of Engineering, let us talk in a Welcome Call. We can discuss your situation and talk about coaching, see how I can help you.
Positions
Having started my professional career in 1995 as a software developer working on a web project at Interactiva, I soon became an engineeering manager and have since then been on a mission to help internet companies scale tech departments for over two decades - first as a manager, now as a coach.
- CTO Coach
- Helping CTOs to grow and succeed.
- Fractional CTO, e.g. 7Mind
- Transforming tech departments and teams.
- CPTO eventsofa
- Scaled eventsofa for successful exit
- CTO brands4friends / eBay Inc.
- Scaled technology department • Build up technology management team • Leveraged Syner-‐ gies with eBay Inc. • Support CEO with technology perspective • Introduced compliance • Grew mobile development • eBay Due Diligence • Integrated brands4friends IT into eBay after M&A • Introduced companywide feature process • Reorg of operations, quality assurance and devel-‐ opment • Reduced bugs by 90% with setting quality goals •Time to market reduced by 50% • Build development team •Introduced IT KPIs • Adherence to schedules increased above 95%
- Team Lead Professional Agents, Immobilienscout24
- Built and scaled development team for professional agents •Pushed and drove introduction of Scrum pro-‐ cess • Technical lead for quality process and metrics •Introduced IT-‐wide risk management • Development lead on next generation feature process
- CTO neotis wissensmanagement
- Knowledge management company • Lead architect • Responsible for technology strategy and innovation • Negotiation with investors and customers
- Director Software Development and Research, Prodata
- Web company • Managed development team • Lead R&D effort into future technologies • Crafted technology roadmap
- Head of Software Development, Pin Multimedia
- Web company • Lead architect • Responsible for technology recruiting • Crafted technology roadmap
- Head of Software Development, Interactiva Biotechnologie
- Mid-1990s, pioneering the internet • Kick‐Started Internet development at Interactiva • Bringing a laboratory into the intennet with very early web video streaming • Built development team
My experience as a CTO coach
I’ve always coached my direct reports and helped them grow and develop with feedback and opinions. After my wife successfully sold her startup where I was CTO, I switched to full time coaching several years ago. My clients have been in all different industries, from adtech to fintech, healthtech to retail. Most of my clients are from software companies, some of them are from hardware companies with their own challenges. I’ve specialized on (fast) growing startups because I’m most interested in challenges arising from growth and change and so clients have between 5 and 80 developers.