Munich, Germany · DACH · Nordics · UK · US
Board-level sparring partner · Tech NED & Advisor (selective mandates)
Digital backbones at global scale. Turning legacy complexity into growth capacity. M&A as a scaling vehicle, not a complication.
“He scales from hands-on technological leadership to board-level engagement — and translates technical debt into competitive advantages.”
About
Transformational Growth CTO. Engineering Executive at Scale for software, platform and product organisations. Turning legacy complexity into growth capacity. M&A as a scaling vehicle, not a complication. Selective Tech NED, Aufsichtsrat and Board Advisor mandates in parallel.
Digital backbones at global scale: the connected-vehicle platform behind 30M+ BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce vehicles in the field; the cloud engineering organisation behind HiveMQ's SaaS portfolio; group technology for a private-equity-backed software platform at Solvares Group.
Recruited, not applied, in every senior role since Vodafone in 2013. A career built across five ownership types — Multinational (BMW, Vodafone, Continental/AUMOVIO), Scale-Up & Venture Capital (HiveMQ), Corporate Subsidiary (Loyalty Partner Solutions, an American Express company), Private Equity (Solvares Group), and Founder (stefan kiendl solutions, mstlogic) — a combination that is rare among senior technology executives in the DACH region.
In my own words
A strategist in love with what code makes possible. What hasn't changed since the first product I ever shipped: real value for the people using it beats an impressive demo, every time. I'm empathic and factual, loyal to data and craft, and Sinek-influenced in how I think about purpose — and, at heart, a Bavarian pragmatic optimist: a bisserl was geht immer.
Turning growth ambitions into operating reality across product, platform and organisation — for owners who need technology to compound, not just to run.
Combined technology and product responsibility. At HiveMQ, the Cloud plan portfolio designed and shipped from Free to Enterprise. At Solvares, the API positioning of the POWEROPT AI optimisation engine, the VISITOUR product evolution and a three-bucket Product & Technology Roadmap. At BMW, combined ownership of the IoT backend and the connected-vehicle data experience.
M&A and post-merger integration that consolidates fragmented estates — grown across multiple entities, each with its own history and operating model — into one coherent platform.
Established the first Cyber Security function at Solvares and hired its first CISO. Two ISO 27001 audits passed, NIS-2 and DORA owned end-to-end.
Translating technical complexity into board-ready strategic decisions — for shareholders, boards and C-suite peers who want substance, not slides.
Industry & Domain Focus
This focus does not change with the contract. It applies to every engagement type below in the same way — a full-time principal mandate, a fractional or interim role, an advisory relationship, a board seat, or a single due-diligence sprint.
Eight domains at the centre of the work — where depth, conviction and 25 years of practice line up. Everything else builds on these.
Order, service and dispatch processes treated as the product itself, not as IT support for it — from the joint product data model and fulfilment automation of the Vodafone merger to scheduling and dispatch at Solvares.
The IoT platform behind every connected BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce — 30M+ vehicles, 60M+ standing connections at any time, live since 2018 — and the HiveMQ Cloud portfolio at million-device scale, including industrial IoT data backbones for Industry 4.0.
Physical products with a platform behind them: vehicles, smart keys and remote access, industrial plants. An unbroken IoT track from the vehicle-data integration at NTT DATA in 2008 to the BMW and HiveMQ platforms.
The digital representation of the physical product, including actions triggered on it: vehicle data collection and digital vehicle model behind remote services at BMW, digital vehicle representation with smart key and remote access at NTT DATA, and the virtual-validation platform (>1 PB) for radar, camera and ADCU development at Continental.
Worked closely with ADAS development: the connected platform behind ADAS use cases at BMW (HD-map distribution, ADAS support functions, tele-operated driving) and the data, ML and simulation platform for autonomous driving at Continental.
Vehicle data end to end: remote services and customer messaging at BMW ConnectedDrive, vehicle-data integration at NTT DATA, and logistics and commercial-vehicle customers such as UPS and MAN RIO on HiveMQ.
Critical-infrastructure workloads where availability is the product: smart-grid customers on HiveMQ at 99.99% availability, energy-market data and tariff-platform engineering at Stromhexe (2011–2012, a short founder venture), and hands-on building and energy automation as personal technical depth. ISO 27001, NIS-2 and DORA owned at group level.
The commercial front end of a connected product: 4,000+ BMW and MINI workshops and several thousand service advisors at NTT DATA, CRM and ordering across the merged Vodafone portfolio, field service and aftersales at Solvares, and global loyalty platforms at Loyalty Partner Solutions.
Named stations and customers, not a list of interests. Where the experience is advisory-level rather than hands-on delivery, it says so.
BMW Group · Continental Autonomous Mobility (now AUMOVIO) · NTT DATA DACH
Solvares Group · HiveMQ · Loyalty Partner Solutions · mstlogic
BMW connected-vehicle backbone and digital vehicle representation · HiveMQ Cloud · early IoT at NTT DATA
mstlogic plant-maintenance software and service · HiveMQ Industry 4.0 data backbones, with customers including Ford Motor Company and Eli Lilly · Siemens, Liebherr, TK Elevator and Jungheinrich as Solvares customers
Vodafone Germany quadruple-play BSS integration · Deutsche Telekom and Virgin Media O2 as platform customers
Solvares Field Services and Logistics, with HVAC manufacturers, building-technology integrators and service companies as a core target group · UPS and MAN RIO on HiveMQ · the BMW and MINI workshop platform at NTT DATA
Smart-grid customers on HiveMQ · energy-market data and tariff-platform engineering at Stromhexe (2011–2012, short founder venture) · E.ON as Solvares customer
Loyalty Partner Solutions, an American Express company — Miles & More by Lufthansa, Deutsche Bahn Bonus, United Airlines
Long-running engagements through stefan kiendl solutions: Eurofins Scientific, with core systems still in production after 20+ years · Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie · Medigene AG
The full domain list, across all engagement types — principal and fractional mandates as much as advisory, board work, and the direct consultation and sparring Stefan does for private equity firms, venture capital and private investors, consultancies and research agencies.
Engagements
The primary focus is a Group or Transformational CTO or CTPO role. Alongside it, stefan kiendl solutions takes on a small number of selective mandates. The format changes, the depth doesn't.
Primary focus
A full-time mandate with combined technology and product responsibility, covering engineering, AI, data, cyber and IT, in an organisation with real scale and a live M&A or integration story. Building on the Group CTO role at Solvares Group.
Direct advisory and sparring for CEOs, CFOs, Chairs, investors and CTO and CTPO peers, as well as for PE firms, VCs, consultancies and research agencies on digital products, technology and innovation trends, across the industries and domains above.
Book directly, or through the executive advisory networks GLG Insights, Third Bridge and Dialectica.
Board, Aufsichtsrat and Beirat mandates on a contract basis, bringing technology, cyber and AI governance into the boardroom. See Board & Advisory below.
Buy-side and sell-side technology due diligence, including the post-merger-integration perspective. Recent examples: the moreIQ acquisition, completed in two weeks, and Loyalty Partner Solutions, an American Express company.
Part-time CTO or CTPO leadership, in very small scope. Directly, or via the F.ECTIVES network.
Time-boxed leadership through a transformation or a leadership gap, taken on in phases between principal roles. Delivered at Loyalty Partner Solutions in 2024.
Where. Principal roles preferably hybrid in Munich or the wider Munich area, then remote-first across DACH, the Nordics, the UK and the US. Advisory, due diligence and board work EU-wide, UK and US, mostly remote and on site case by case.
Track Record
~€45M
ARR at Solvares Group
~380 employees · 11 locations · 45 countries · 250+ enterprise customers
30M+
Connected vehicles on the BMW backend
60M+ standing IoT connections at any time · 200+ countries · live since 2018
6→30
HiveMQ Cloud engineering organisation, in one year
99.99% availability across three public clouds
3
Integration streams in 24 months at Solvares
Internal PMI from five to three operating units · moreIQ acquisition due diligence in two weeks · the Solvares–Totalmobile combination
1st
Cyber Security function at Solvares, with its first CISO
Two ISO 27001 audits passed · NIS-2 and DORA owned end-to-end
25%
More order volume from an AI optimisation engine in production
Average customer outcome for vehicle routing and scheduling, alongside 42% less throughput time and 52% lower travel costs
Customers of the platforms he has led at Solvares and HiveMQ include
Career
Multinational, Scale-Up/Venture Capital, Corporate Subsidiary, Private Equity, and Founder — recruited, not applied, in every senior role since Vodafone (2013). Each station is listed with the industry it was built in.
Private Equity — Five Arrows / Rothschild & Co, DBAG
Software & SaaS · Field Service, Logistics & Aftersales · HVAC and industrial technology
Appointed Group CTO in the course of the Five Arrows acquisition. Re-architected a 140+ engineer organisation, grown across multiple legacy entities, into one product, platform and value-stream model. Leading the technology side of the publicly announced Solvares–Totalmobile combination.
Corporate Subsidiary — American Express
Loyalty & Customer Engagement · Software & SaaS · aviation and rail programmes
Technology due diligence and organisational-development advisory for a global loyalty-platform business serving Miles & More, Deutsche Bahn Bonus and United Airlines.
Scale-Up / Venture Capital
Connected Products & IoT · Software & SaaS · logistics, telco and smart-grid end-customers
Hired by co-founder and CTO Dominik Obermaier. Grew the Cloud engineering team 6 → 30 within one year and shipped the full HiveMQ Cloud SaaS portfolio at 99.99% availability across AWS, GCP and Azure.
Multinational
Automotive Tier 1 · Autonomous Driving: data, ML and simulation · Virtual Validation
Owned the Data Lake, ML pipelines and HPC simulation environment (>1 PB) for radar, camera and ADCU development, uniting ~120 people across 8 countries into one product-oriented team.
Multinational
Automotive OEM · Connected Vehicles & Telematics · Internet of Things at global scale
Approached as the first Chief Architect for BMW's next-generation Connected Vehicle Backend. Chief Architect of the IoT platform behind every connected BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce: 30M+ vehicles, engineered for a 20-year lifespan, including the digital vehicle representation behind remote services.
Multinational — the "recruited, not applied" boundary
Telecommunications — quadruple play across cellular, fixed-line, internet and TV
Joined for the BSS integration of the Vodafone / Arcor / Kabel Deutschland merger — one of the largest telco post-merger-integration IT programmes in Germany at the time.
Custom software & IT consulting
Automotive Aftersales & Workshop Systems · early Connected Products and vehicle data
Led teams and projects and carried the architecture for dealer and workshop core services and service-advisory applications used daily by 4,000+ BMW and MINI workshops worldwide. Delivered early IoT and vehicle-data integration, including smart-key and remote-access aftersales solutions. The station that later led to his recruitment at BMW.
Founder
Industrial Tech & Manufacturing — plant maintenance for large printing lines and production plants
Founded and ran a plant-maintenance software and service business for large printing lines and manufacturing plants, alongside studies, with full business responsibility for strategy, financials and contracts.
Boutique advisory & engineering practice
Automotive · Manufacturing · Biotech, Pharma & MedTech · SaaS · Telco · Energy · Smart Home & Building
Founded in 2001 at age 17 and run continuously alongside every main role since. Advisory and sparring, technology due diligence and selective fractional work across automotive, manufacturing, biotech, pharma and SaaS, with long-running clients such as Eurofins Scientific.
Board & Advisory
Alongside a principal role, Stefan takes on selective Tech NED, Aufsichtsrat, Beirat and Board Advisor mandates, bringing hands-on technology and cyber depth to governance conversations that are usually held without a technologist in the room.
Stefan is a member of F.ECTIVES, a network of experienced Fractional CxOs — CTO, CTPO, CDO and CIO — who lead transformation, digitalisation and growth as flexible, part-time leadership rather than a full-time hire. No sales layer in between: every contact in the network has led exactly this kind of transformation themselves, at board level, not from a slide deck.
For companies hitting the ceiling of what their own team can carry alone, F.ECTIVES places an experienced C-level leader alongside them — for as long as the mandate actually needs it.
Visit F.ECTIVES ↗Selected Writing
Essays on transformation, M&A, AI and board governance, written for shareholders, boards and C-suite peers. Each one develops a single idea to the end. The full series, and the discussion around it, is on LinkedIn.
Series opener
Technology creates value only in combination with business strategy, customer outcome and disciplined execution. The opener of a series on transformation, AI, engineering and leadership.
Series · Part 2
Technology is an amplifier. Transformations that work begin with clarity about purpose, customer value, ownership, priorities and decision paths.
M&A · Post-merger integration
German rigorous challenge and British constructive harmony can code the same question very differently. The harder part of an integration is often shared thinking, not technology.
Board governance
What a board needs is independent judgement across product, platform, organisation, risk and value creation, rather than narrow technical expertise: challenge, translate and coach.
The full series, and everything written since, is on LinkedIn.
Endorsements
“Into the product discussions he brought a combination that is rarer than it should be: deep technical credibility paired with calm business acumen. […] Most people are fluent in one of those languages, not both.”
“He thinks about ARR quality, deal economics, margin implications, and capital allocation trade-offs in a way that is uncommon for most CTOs. […] Any board, growth company, or private-equity-backed business looking for a transformational CTO with strong commercial instincts and an exceptionally collaborative leadership style would be fortunate to have him on their team.”
“Stefan has the mindset of an entrepreneur inside a scaling business. […] Technically deep, commercially sharp, no ego, no politics.”
“Stefan is one of the rare technology leaders who combines strategic clarity, hands-on pragmatism and genuine collaboration.”
“Stefan does not shy away from hard problems. He moves towards them.”
“What distinguishes him is that he refuses to treat architecture and commercials as separate conversations: every technical position came with an effort estimate, a customer consequence, or a revenue implication. He was also the most reliably honest voice in the room, giving straight answers on product maturity even where they were inconvenient for his own side.”
The quotes above are verbatim from LinkedIn recommendations; omissions are marked […]. * The quote at the top of this page is paraphrased from Thomas Nielsen's recommendation. More recommendations and the full career history are on LinkedIn.
Contact
Selective conversations on principal roles, advisory, board and due-diligence mandates.
All of my active engagement — updates, references, mutual connections — happens on LinkedIn. That's the fastest way to reach me, and I read every message myself.