International Company Finance Industry - Executive Coaching and Cloud Strategy

As a well-positioned, large player in the finance industry, digital transformation is and will be a big topic for multiple years. 

One of the early steps in their digital transformation journey is identified: a global cloud strategy has to be defined and executed, which allows for private and public cloud scenarios and will be an essential part of the future technology core of the business.

Challenges and opportunities are manifold - establishing a practical cloud governance framework and guiding principles, complying with regulatory requirements, envisioning and building a scalable technology platform in a rapidly evolving area, founding a core team of skilled people pushing the complex endeavor, choosing and successfully negotiating with proper cloud hyper-scalers, up to performing very conscious change management activities - are just a few named.

The goal of the project was to coach selected IT executives on developing their cloud strategy, deriving a transformation roadmap, and managing the first crucial initiatives along this road.

The following approach has been taken to coach selected IT executives on developing their cloud strategy:

• Understand and discuss the overall corporate development, the corporate strategy, and the IT strategy to understand the implications and interdependencies of the cloud strategy
• Brainstorming and co-creation sessions on vital milestones of the project such as project definition, project concept, risk management, (early) strategy drafts, roadmap creation, etc.
• Brainstorming and co-creation sessions on particular strategic and tactical matters
• Specific preparation sessions for essential meetings, such as Steering Committee meetings and vendor negotiations
• In alignment with the IT executives: participation in specific critical meetings to provide a neutral outside view and help to push the project in the intended direction

The engagement length for coaching the IT executives on their global cloud strategy was about 15 months. During this time, the coaching intensity was aligned to the client's needs and occurring topics.