Personal Profile
Holger Nathrath
Being an experienced digital leader in startup and corporate environment, I successfully managed large projects and teams establishing entire strategic business fields with an outstanding return on invest. The teams I led over the years delivered outstanding results on Customer Experience in the areas of Entertainment, Smart Home, Mobile Payment, Sales &Service and Computer Games.
My Personal journey
The core drivers of my personal journey were the curiosity, openness to new challenges, an uncompromising focus for quality and taking true ownership for the joint goals.
Shipped Products
countries
Publications
Awards
My Projects
The following examples of my work are the result of great team work together with fantastic colleagues. Jointly bringing things to life that make a difference for business and customer drives and inspires me most.
Lead UX & Design Team | 2018 – 2020
Design as Future Skill
Anchoring of Design as a future skill and core discipline along the entire value chain. With Design as a core element of the CX Transformation, development and implementation of an expert career with clear skill profiles, defined selection processes and transparent ambition levels for all seniority levels. Development of a training curriculum for vertical and horizontal training of design and CX skills in the company.
Deutsche Telekom
Sr. Manager Executive Creative Direction | 2012 – 2014
Brand & Design Platform
Deutsche Telekom brand and design platform as core touchpoint for all guidelines and assets. Supporting more than 17K people around the globe to create consistent experiences for our Customers.
Deutsche Telekom
Senior Manager Experience Strategy | 2014 – 2017
Mobile Payment Ecosystem
Creation of a customer centric end to end ecosystem for mobile payment and mobile commerce from vision to proposition to hardware terminal design and wearables. I still firmly believe in the potential of a payment service as ecosystem differentiator and retention driver.
Deutsche Telekom
Senior Manager Experience Strategy | 2014 – 2017
Experience Strategy Future Living
Experience Strategy as a target picture, concrete architecture and source of requirements from the customer’s perspective. Developed on the basis of a state-of-the-art combination of strategy development and qualitative research and design methods, it provides clear guidance for the business unit and the related innovation priorities.
Deutsche Telekom
Managing Director | 2004 – 2007
Black Prophecy
Full end to end responsibility as managing director and production lead for this AAA massive multiplayer space game. Creation of incredible quality with stunning graphics, a story custom created by a highly awarded science-fiction writer and a specially composed and live orchestra recorded cinematic soundtrack.
Reakktor Media GmbH
Development Director | 2002 – 2004
Neocron
Germanies first massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) and worlds first MMORPG with a real time combat. Incredible business impact with leading to economic success and independence of the studio and ultimately to the acquisition of the studio through a international publishing company.
Reakktor Media GmbH
Professional Violoncellist | 1994 – 2002
Professional Orchestra Work
Work as professional musician in multiple Orchestras like symphonic orchestra Göttingen, Theater of Bochum, Heidelberger Chamber Orchestra etc. Many international concert tours in more than eight European countries.
Several Professional Orchestras
Lead UX & Design Team | 2018 – 2020
Voice of the Customer Blueprint
Integrating the voice of the customer along the entire value chain of a product is a core success factor in building products that customers love. Development of a Blueprint to standardize this for Deutsche Telekoms Innovation area with phase specific guidance on purpose, methods and outcome. Awarded with the Lead to Win award in the category of customer Experience.
Deutsche Telekom
Senior Manager Experience Strategy | 2014 – 2017
MyWallet App
Conception of the MyWallet app as key element in the mobile payment ecosystem based on a custom-made working model for design collaboration and application. The completely modularized concept enabled standardized integration of multiple features like payment, ticketing, public transport, digital keys and digital commerce. It also allowed easy branded third-party integration of key partners.
Deutsche Telekom
Senior Manager Experience Strategy | 2014 – 2017
Self Service Experience
Redefined self-service experience for the online portal of Deutsche Telekom. The delivered results of our cross functional and agile working format enabled effective cross segment alignment and created significant impact on self-service rate, online sales and time to market.
Deutsche Telekom
Across Career | 2000-2020
20+ Digital Products
Creation of a wide range of digital products in a wide range of business areas across platforms like PC, Smartphone or Nintendo DS. Growing span of control across my career from being part of the team to full responsibility as managing director.
Start-Up & Large Enterprise
Senior Lead Producer | 2009 – 2012
Web Based Online Gaming
Holistic development of web-based gaming as a new business segment. Monetization strategy, product development in cross-functional teams, implementation of data driven business intelligence and the development of new customer service and community management processes led to an outstanding ROI. Afterwards we passed on the success formula to studios in the Ubisoft group worldwide.
Ubisoft Entertainment
Senior Lead Producer | 2009 – 2012
Anno Online
Creation of an outstanding web-based computer game based on the famous and extremely successful Anno franchise. Stunning graphics and a proven game system for a fantastic game experience.
Ubisoft Entertainment
Self Employed | 1990 – 1994
Doom
Even after 25 years my maps are still among the top 10 rated Doom levels ever. Started as a hobby this was the entry card in my career in digital entertainment products.
Gaming Enthusiast
Lead Telekom Design & Customer Experience (act.) | 2017 – 2018
CX Management
Conception of 6 cornerstones for the implementation of CX in large organizations, including definition and guidance for implementation: CX vision, CX governance, value driven CX steering, CX initiatives, customer centric working models and cultural change.
Deutsche Telekom
Senior Manager Experience Strategy | 2014 – 2017
Experience Innovation Process
The „Experience Innovation Process“ is a scalable, replicable process for customer-centric innovation in large companies. It is composed of concrete working formats and closes the gap between corporate strategy and product implementation.
Deutsche Telekom
Senior Manager Experience Strategy | 2014 – 2017
Experience Framework
As basis for a convergent customer experience across the Deutsche Telekom product ecosystem, the Experience Framework standardizes on three key dimensions: Experience Principles form the conceptual cornerstones of an overarching customer experience, technical enablers define common requirements on a technical level, and interfaces consistency ensures brand recognition and orientation.
Deutsche Telekom
Managing Director | 2005 – 2007
Fund Raising
Setup and management of investment fund company for financing games productions with a personal focus on production controlling and completion bonding
3XA Capital GPS GmbH
Senior Lead Producer | 2009 – 2012
The Settlers Online
Development of The Settlers Online as starting point for a new business segment, setting worldwide standards in browser based gaming. Incredible short term return on invest and long term business impact even 10 years (!) after release.
Ubisoft Entertainment
Author of Textbook | 2010
Project Management in Media Production
Author of a textbook about project management in media production, condensing the knowledge of many years of experience into a case study. Published by Cornelsen, it touches all important areas of PM and was for years recommended literature at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg.
Publisher: Cornelsen
Managing Director | 2007 – 2009
Black Mirror
Cutting edge point and click adventure taking you through a story of horror and mystery.
Cranberry Productions GmbH
Professional Violoncellist | 1996 – 2000
CD Recordings
Part as Violoncellist of several professional studio recordings with various international Orchestras.
Recording Studios
My Managers about me
My core values for collaboration are integrity, trust and ownership on top of an uncompromising focus on the joint goal.
“Holger is a strategic thinker and a passionate manager of product development, design and cx. His positive attitude and dedication to delivering high quality contents and outputs serve him well in leading his team and contributing to the design leadership team in a very professional and empathic way. His integrity and resilience are highly valued by the full team. It is a pleasure working daily with him as we build together the journey to help DT becoming an even more customer centric company.”
„Holger impressed me with his analytic skills and sound understanding of user experience and design in digital environments of multi-national organizations. His open-mindedness and endurance were especially beneficial to define, develop, review and adopt new creative methods, processes and tools in order to evolve the well-known Magenta brand towards an inspiring and loved user experience across multiple products and services.“
„Holger is a highly experienced manager with a deep knowledge and understanding of strategic management, leadership and team engagement. He has always been truly dedicated and committed to the groups strategic objectives, delivering the best possible product value and best possible competitive advantage for the Studio.“
„Holger’s management skills and profound experience in the creative industry were a key factor in our joint efforts on implementing design and customer experience on a strategic level at Deutsche Telekom. But even more important were his high level of empathy and his cooperative management style. His motivating nature is urgently needed in the corporate environment in order to develop groundbreaking products and bring them successfully to markets.“
„Holger is an extremely efficient and empathic manager, who’s also best in guiding his team. He proved great understanding of management the development of digital products and constantly improved our processes and working environment without forgetting the needs of the team members. He empowered his teammates and played a key role in the successful implementation of browser-based gaming which had significant impact for our Studio.„
My Learning Journey
A Growth Mindset, curiosity and the courage to explore new paths are the driving force of my career. Learning something new every day has led to a broad cross-functional understanding and knowledge. I use this knowledge in my work, but also love to transfer as a manager.
2020 | CX Professional
Crafting A CX Vision, Building A Customer-Centric Culture, Conducting CX Research, Maximizing Journey Mapping, Measuring CX, Telling the ROI Story
Forrester Research, Inc.
2017 | Design Thinking Facilitator
In-depth curriculum about design methods and Design Thinkin facilitation.
Deutsche Telekom | Bonn
2009 | MBA International Mgmt.
International management, international corporate financial environment, integrated marketing
John Moores University | Liverpool
2007 | Diploma in Management Studies (B-TEC LVL 7)
Strategic management, financial management, human resource management, strategic marketing
Europ. College of Business and Mgmt., London
2003 | Business Diploma
Study in organization and leadership, strategic management, human resource management. Setup by the german DAX companies and the university of Hagen
IWW – University of Hagen | Hagen
2001 | Publisher interactive systems
Certificate in project management and multi-media production including coding in action script and lingo
B.I.B. – Chamber of Commerce | Hannover
1998 | Master in fine Arts (Music)
Study in music as preparation for professional concert carreer (Orchestra)
Folkwang Hochschule| Essen
1994 | Diploma Doceerend Musicus
Bachelor degree in music (Violoncello and piano) and education
Brabants Conservatorium | Tilburg (NL)
Awards
Awards are not on top of my list of priorities, but I am proud that my work has been awarded more than 50 times in the areas of Design, Customer Experience and Computer games.
Red Dot Design Award | Anual Multimedia Award | Deutscher Computerspielpreis | IF Award |German Design Award | etc.
Publications
Writing and publishing requires time and focus, but not only fosters the transmission of knowledge, it also helps to organize thoughts and build new knowledge through research:
Projectmanagement in Media | Design Thinking, Doing | Strategic Design at Deutsche Telekom | Leadership Exploring the Myth | etc.
Speakership
The sharing of knowledge and thoughts is a mutual process that generates new impulses, improves the result and propels us forward together.
DMI Conference | FMX | Webinale Berlin | Game Developers Conference | etc.