Interim lead for IT governance or programs
Taking over a leadership or program role in IT for a defined period, with agreed authority and an agreed end. Usually six to twelve months, three to five days a week, remote and hybrid.
the usual duration; three to five days a week.
Responsibilities and decision-making authority for the engagement: sponsor, reporting line, escalation path, end of the engagement.
to a successor, with reporting and responsibilities that keep running.
When the role is needed for a period
The IT lead, a service owner or a program lead has left or is not yet replaced, and the topics do not wait.
Deadlines, providers or decisions have reached executive management, and the organization lacks the time to lead it.
A provider change, a separation of legal entities, or a new IT lead who should take over an orderly state.
What the role covers
- Leading and developing teams, including objectives, feedback and performance management within the agreed remit.
- Reporting to executive management, in a fixed rhythm.
- Setting priorities: which decision comes first, which can wait, which cannot be made yet.
- Taking on escalations and leading them to a decision.
- Managing providers: scope, SLA framework, escalation paths.
- Decision papers for executive management, the supervisory board or shareholders.
- Change governance where changes touch operations.
I make responsibilities, decision paths and interfaces visible and connect them with clear expectations of the roles involved.
The aim is a program or IT function that runs predictably again, and a successor who takes over with reporting, responsibilities and open points in hand.
Not part of the work: technical implementation and operations, security or compliance attestations, and legal advice.
Engagements and results
- since 2026, currentInterim IT program and governance lead · Regional energy utility, Rhineland
- Built an assessment of the IT landscape as a basis for decisions by the managing directors: structure, ratings, recommendations, prioritized areas for action.
- Introduced change governance for telephony: weekly CAB, change log, go/no-go criteria, a defined emergency change process. The telephony stabilization phase is complete; the CAB continues.
- Provider management for telephony: SLA framework, escalation paths and maintenance responsibilities clarified with the providers.
- Ongoing: subject-matter support for a telecommunications tender, including the requirements basis and evaluation logic; vendor selection is not yet complete.
- Team leadership and performance management within the agreed remit.
- October to December 2025Interim governance lead · Ottobock via Sycor GmbH
- Took over a vacant senior role at short notice; restored reporting, ownership and escalation paths between client, delivery and business units.
- Owned SLA management and management reporting for an environment of around 500 servers. With the teams involved, improved SLA compliance from 92% to 98.8% and reduced management reporting effort by 80%.
- Reconciled the data behind the monthly reporting: 686 ServiceNow CMDB entries against 515 CheckMK monitoring hosts; prepared service-level gaps, availability data and SLA deviations.
- Analyzed around 27 RCA and problem cases from 2024 and 2025 and structured them with actions, owners and status for governance reporting.
- 2024 to 2025Interim training and enablement manager · BWI GmbH
- Steered a training and enablement setup for around 500 users a year through a transition phase, in a security-critical environment.
- Built planning, coordination and documentation structures for distributed units.
- 2024 to 2025Interim service manager · STEAG GmbH
- Coordinated the replacement of more than 300 printers across more than 30 sites, without disrupting operations.
- Updated the ServiceNow CMDB for hardware components.
- Analyzed service processes end to end, with a focus on ticket flows and user satisfaction.
- 2023 to 2024Service delivery manager / service owner (interim) · TenneT via Arvato Systems
- ITIL change governance with CAB control for three to eight changes per month in critical energy infrastructure.
- Coordinated international onshore/offshore teams and defined escalation paths.
- Prepared decision papers for management and the client.
- 2021 to 2023, employedAssociate manager / service delivery lead · Klöckner & Co. and thyssenkrupp Steel Europe via Accenture
- Led a 16-person onshore/offshore team (L1 to L3) for more than 35 enterprise applications in five European countries.
- Weekly incident volume fell from 15–20 to 3–10 within nine months.
- Owned an MSP transition: scope negotiation, hypercare, operational handover.
- Set up 24/7 L1 support and established service reviews at C-level; promoted to associate manager after 14 months.
- 2018 to 2021, employedConsultant / senior consultant · EnBW, Uniper and Stadtwerke München via INTENSE AG
- Coordinated a data center migration in a regulated environment: business process mapping, prioritization of critical data, hypercare.
- Set up IT governance processes for new applications: incident, problem, change and user access management.
- Standardized and pre-qualified more than 100 firewall change requests; chaired regular KPI reviews with senior management.
- 2015 to 2018, employedEconomic consultant · Jack Faucett Associates, Bethesda (USA)
- Decision support for US federal transportation agencies: cost-benefit analyses and contributions to policy reports, training for transportation agencies in several US states.
In short
Interim Lead · IT Governance & Program Stabilization
Availability on request.
Let's talk
If an IT decision is coming up or a role needs covering for a while, pick a time for a first 30-minute conversation. Or send me a note; I reply personally.
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Willich near Düsseldorf, Germany · remote and hybrid · German and English