Sven leads McKinsey Digital in Turkey and McKinsey Technology across Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Sven has worked extensively in the financial industries across Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, helping banks address operations and technology questions. With his focus on successfully managing technology transformations, he has set up digital platforms, improved clients’ enterprise architecture, and led IT-modernization programs.
Examples of his recent client work include the following:
- leading a three-year holistic IT and business transformation, including agile, cloud, next-generation architecture, process, and product optimization, of a leading multicountry banking group in the Middle East
- working for one of the largest banks in the Middle East to drive a five-year program on IT modernization and process digitization
- advising the largest multicountry banking group in Africa during a four-year IT-performance transformation and greenfield-business building
- leading programs on core banking replacement and IT modernization for one of the largest banks in Europe as part of a multicountry rollout of a core banking platform
- supporting a postmerger transformation program on IT and operations, including migration of the core banking system, for two of the largest banks in the Middle East
Published Work
“Demystifying digital dark matter: A new standard to tame technical debt,” McKinsey & Company, June 2022
“Tech talent tectonics: Ten new realities for finding, keeping, and developing talent,” McKinsey & Company, April 2022
“Breaking through data-architecture gridlock to scale AI,” McKinsey & Company, January 2021
“Ten ‘antipatterns’ that are derailing technology transformations,” McKinsey & Company, July 2020
“A practical way for CIOs to manage IT costs through the COVID-19 crisis,” McKinsey & Company, April 2020
“After the first wave: How CIOs can weather the coronavirus crisis,” McKinsey & Company, April 2020
“Five enterprise-architecture practices that add value to digital transformations,” McKinsey & Company, November 2018
“IT needs to embrace complexity to take control of its own destiny,” McKinsey & Company, October 2018
“Why you need a digital data architecture to build a sustainable digital business,” McKinsey & Company, November 2017
“Deploying a two-speed architecture at scale,” McKinsey & Company, September 2016
“Becoming a digital bank,” McKinsey & Company, April 2016
“Delivering large-scale IT projects on time, on budget, and on value,” McKinsey & Company, October 2012
Education
University of Wuppertal
PhD, mathematics and computer science