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.”

Monica Dalla Riva

VP Design & CX, Deutsche Telekom AG

„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.“

Peter Respondek

VP Executive Creative Direction, Deutsche Telekom AG

„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.“

Chris Schmitz

COO, Remedy Entertainment

„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.“

Philipp Thesen

Professor for Design and Human-System-Interactions, FH Darmstadt

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.

Odile Limpach

Managing Director, Ubisoft Bluebyte

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.

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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.

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