CEO Today - Management Consulting Awards 2022

@ceotodaymag @ceotodaymag www.ceotodaymagazine.com CEO Today Magazine @ceo.today /ceo-today f t y l n Connect with the Powerful and In uential. Follow uson social media to receive the latest updates, news and online features on the go. EO T O D A Y

20 PAGE Stéphane Beemelmans Claus Wechselmann Managing Directors of PD – Berater der öffentlichen Hand GmbH

CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - CANADA - - 4 - C EO T O D A Y www.ceotodaymagazine.com For more information, contact Jacob Mallinder Jacob.Mallinder@universalmedia365.com 0044 (0) 1543 255 537 CEO Today Magazine is a premium aspirational lifestyle and business magazine. We seek to inspire, motivate and inform the world’s most successful business leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs through our content. Our magazine provides news, interviews and features about the most inuential leaders in the business world and beyond, focusing on topical stories, exclusive content and indepth articles that motivate our readers. Subscribe to receive a monthly hard copy. Price on application for subcriptions outside of the UK £395 *+ VAT if applicable *includes postage & packaging

CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - 5 - - INTRODUCTION - C EO T O D A Y MANAGEMENT CONSULTING A W A R D S 2 0 2 2 Welcome to the 2022 edition of the CEO Today Management Consulting Awards. These awards are an annual celebration of the bold leaders and innovative minds in the Management Consulting sector. Every year, CEO Today recognises the importance of the field and the role its specialists play in strengthening both the public and private spheres. In the modern corporate environment, the insights offered by experts in the Management Consulting space have become even more crucial to business leaders and CEOs worldwide. CEO Today has sought out the most ambitious innovators in this sector to raise their profile and learn how they have enabled growth and shrewd risk assessment in the world of business. Included in this year’s release is a series of interviews with a range of preeminent consultants and business coaches in the sector. Featured interviewees include NorthFind Management CEO Jonathan Karelse and Magnifor Consulting CEO Marischa van Zantvoort, who give us an exclusive look into their growing success in supply chain resilience and risk management technology respectively. We also hear fromPD’s Stéphane Beemelmans and ClausWechselmann as they explain how they have steered their public sector consultancy over the most challenging years of operation, and from Antonio Panico – winner of multiple Management and Consulting Awards – who discusses his continued business development and his philosophy in advising his many clients. We at CEO Today are proud to present this special publication. Congratulations to all of our winners and finalists.

CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - 6 - - ITALY -

“My name is Antonio Panìco. Though I graduated in pharmacy, I have since gained extensive experience in the field of sales and marketing for national and international companies, and I have held various positions in an important multinational pharma company – passing, in a short time, from sales rep to head of training. In the meantime, I have studied and deepened my expertise in topics such as self-help, leadership, persuasion, emotional intelligence and self-efficacy, with a scientific and rigorous approach. In 2018 I founded Business Coaching Italia, of which I am the CEO. It is the first company in Italy dealing with coaching for companies in a specialised way. Today it is a company that helps hundreds of Italian companies to structure their business and improve it through processes and methods of proven effectiveness, with a staff of about 20 coaches. Business Coaching Italia is committed to spreading the culture of coaching and helping companies thrive. The other line of business is the academy where we train entrepreneurs, professionals, and managers to become business coaches. The BCI Method, which I conceived, is the result of years of studies, research, and direct experience in the field with hundreds of entrepreneurs, managers and professionals. The theoretical pillar on which the BCI Method is based is self-efficacy. This is a theory elaborated on by Professor Albert Bandura, father of cognitive psychology, who was awarded the National Medal of Science of the United States in 2016 by President Barrack Obama for the contribution that his theories on social learning have given to the resolution of important national issues. The coaching techniques on which the BCI Method is based aim to achieve progressive victories for the coachee. For the customer, achieving progressive successes means seeing business processes improve, with great benefits in efficiency and effectiveness (and, consequently, in business margins), while also increasing their self-efficacy – that is their feeling of being able to concretely solve the problems they are facing.” Antonio Panico CEO of Business Coaching Italia Foro Traiano, 00186 Roma RM, Italy T: +39 342-876-4441 | E: panicoantoniot@icloud.com www.businesscoachingitalia.com About Antonio Panico CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - 7 - - ITALY -

and adaptable manner. It was confirmed that the BCI model helps entrepreneurs to be self-effective and to thrive even in the chaos of pandemic-related contingencies, because the model helps them to follow procedures and to be agentive – as Bandura says, to cause a change and not to be a victimof circumstances in their business. Another lesson concerned the importance assumed by the supervision of coaches given our constant growth, especially of new coaches. We have implemented a quality department that supervises every single project in coordination with the business coach assigned to the customer, thus ensuring the highest quality and effectiveness of the service provided. Can you tell us about the current management and leadership trends that you are observing in Italy? As adherence to our activities shows, leaders perceive that something is changing beyond the pandemic, and they need to learn new things to be able to manage change. The elements involved are many, but the two main ones are the exponential growth of technology and the extremely current ‘Great Resignation’ phenomenon that is also spreading in Italy. Many employees, even in our companies, are resigning and not merely because they are dissatisfied with their salary; their motivations are deeper. People are no longer satisfied with an unfulfilling job that may be in an unorganized environment, which has a negative impact on their satisfaction and on the possibility of reconciling private life and career expectations. 140 people, of whom we received 83 applications and we selected 43 enrolled in the course. The goal is not only to train these coaches, but also to collaborate with them by sharing the increasingly numerous customers that we are able to acquire. What new insights in the field of business coaching have you gained during this time? The last two years have been a historic period characterised by great changes. The pandemic has given a sense of uncertainty and vulnerability to many entrepreneurs who have, in some cases, had to revolutionise their businesses to continue to thrive. The clearest message for us was that the protocols worked even in a state of full emergency because they allow business leaders to structure their companies in a solid way, to better manage the team and the business to changing conditions in a systematic Since we last spoke in 2021, how have your academy and its students developed? The Business Coaching Academy is the business unit that deals with training business coaches, teaching the coaching protocols and business processes that I have codified and implemented in my career (there are about 50 different protocols on the subject). The goal is to ensure that the technology we have developed is applied in the correct way, which is why it was necessary to publish a collection of such procedures within which the coach can find all the steps in the implementation of the activities. In 2021 we closed the training course started in March 2020 which enrolled 23 entrepreneurs, professionals and managers. Then, in the last quarter of 2021, we launched the new edition of the course and selected 43 candidates. It is important for us to select candidates by choosing from those who have applied to join. At the presentation there were about CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - ITALY - - 8 -

For an entrepreneur or a professional, it is important to be in the mindset of a paradigm shift in the world of work. This means, basically, that in the future finding good employees will be more difficult than finding customers. The increasingly widespread needs in Italy are, on the one hand, to create wellstructured, organised and efficient work environments in which everyone can make their own contribution and have the satisfaction of achieving company objectives (since everyone likes to win), and on the other hand recognising the importance of enlisting, training and retaining more and more qualified staff and hiring new talents. To do this, company heads need to work mindfully on their leadership. Today it is clear that the “predict and control” approach is no longer sufficient to maintain this management style. Bridging the gap between generations must begin with the belief that all employees, regardless of age, have an innate need to find purpose and balance in their life. Finally, themanagement of companies and leadership will increasingly need technological tools, both for the measurement and analysis of performance and for relations with personnel. It is now established that working from home will take on an important share of the team’s working hours. How do you expect these to affect the growth of your business throughout 2022? Technological growth certainly offers increasingly effective tools for the analysis of the trend of metrics and the monitoring of KPIs, allowing an increasingly in-depth awareness of one’s business and the possibility of promptly intervening on any drop in statistics. With this in mind, it will be even more important to make entrepreneurs understand the need to introduce the use of these tools into everyday life. These are often experienced by employees as control tools, but are in reality necessary for the growth of the business. Another engine of growth is linked to leadership. It will be essential to work correctly and in a focused way on human resources, creating rewarding systems that encourage both the individual and the team, thereby promoting the personal and professional growth of each collaborator and creating an environment in which people work with pleasure. Leaders should also pay great attention to communication in their organisations. All this will help to build a healthy business reality, increase employee satisfaction, retain the best people and attract new talent. The ideal client of BCI is not only an entrepreneur or a manager but also a freelancer. If you think this refers to you, you must: • Make your company anorganisation that works and can produce visible results in terms of profitability and performance right away, in addition to finding the right strategies to grow after a moment of crisis and sometimes just stall or simply adapt to changes in the market or the context in which it operates. • Get better results from your teamof sellers, such as increased conversion rates, working both online and offline. • Set up your business structure so that you stop having to do everything yourself. Have a robust recruitment process to avoid hiring and having to keep the wrong person in the company. • Create a rewarding system that can really incentivize your employees and thus have an adequate ROI; automate your company by defining an organic system of procedures and protocols that all collaborators are able to follow without errors and that avoids continuously intervening in the operation; understand how to expand and scale your business, combining online and offline facets. • Define a control and measurement system, such as KPI dashboards and statistics, that help you discern what happens to your company as it evolves and not when everything is over, so you can understand how to adjust the trajectory every day to keep the course towards your set goal. Learn to manage leadership and find the most suitable style for your employees to become independently productive. • Create a marketing strategy capable of analysing the real need of the market, adapting to frequent changes, defining the most correct One of the most valuable skills that a coach gives to the client is the ability to remain calm, lucid and analytical when everyone is in the grip of anxiety. ❝ ❝ CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - ITALY - - 9 -

CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - ITALY - - 10 - the dynamics of a company in depth and knows how to interpret them. You cannot help a business if you do not know how it works. I know that my position is completely at odds with the suggestions of some coaching companies (some claim that the coach does not have to know the dynamics of a business to be effective; indeed I often hear that it is preferable to be completely unrelated to it). However, my observation of the facts and my experience lead me to say that a coach who wants to work in business cannot fail to have previous experience of the company. That is why my coaches are all entrepreneurs, professionals, or managers. In addition, there are several soft skills that are crucial. The first is the ability to deal with situations, such as the moments of demotivation of your client – his fear, his worries, his desire to escape, or simply his ineptitude in the face of problems. It is also essential to face the emotional At themoment inwhich I amanswering these questions, a new crisis has just opened linked to the war conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which will undoubtedly lead to economic strain for businesses. As always, our work will be oriented to find ways to transform crises into opportunities for personal and professional growth, trying to minimise the impact on our country while working alongside entrepreneurs. You have said in the past that coaching is not just a job for you, but part of your personality. What personal skills and personality traits would you describe as necessary for an effective business coach? First, I focus on technical skills. It is essential that a business coach knows positioning for the company or for individual products and setting up a system of offers that can attract new customers or retain old ones. Do you foresee new opportunities emerging for yourself and your clients as pandemic restrictions recede? We start from the assumption that every change – even positive – as the hoped-for resolution of the pandemic still leads to the need to review business systems, which always starts from the analysis of the current scenario for the structuring of an effective strategy. We will have to learn if the scenario will return to how it was before the pandemic or, as I believe, the way we worked before will be integrated with what we have learned, innovated and implemented during the crisis.

CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - ITALY - - 11 - was to have more time to devote to them. When I gave my definition of leadership, I said that it is the ability to lead a team that can achieve goals autonomously. This is of fundamental importance to ensure that the leader or entrepreneur has enough time to devote to their personal life alongside the strategic planning of their company, so I take this on board myself for the sake of my family. I will also never give up my dream of helping the progress of society through the improvement of my customers and work environments. A successful company is not one that merely manages to make a profit for its shareholders, but one that has a social purpose that makes it almost unique, and which manages to reconcile economic productivity with social and territorial productivity. This is a result that fills my life, beyond even the great business successes we achieve. What does this award mean to you? It is an honour and a responsibility. An honour because it is a recognition of all the work I have done in recent years and the commitment I have put into growing my customers, my company and myself. I am proud to receive this award as further testament to the quality of the work done. It is a responsibility because to respect our mission – that is, to help entrepreneurs grow their profits, systematise their company and attain the ideal business state – is becoming increasingly difficult in our ever more uncertain, volatile and complex world. But for us it is a challenge that motivates us to continuously improve and to pursue our final challenge: to make a positive impact upon society beyond making profits. think there are two main prerequisites for this job. The first is the ability help the customer analyse all the elements that make up the problem itself, to know how to synthesise between the elements in groups or similar sets to break down the problem into smaller and more manageable parts and subsequently help him find a solution with creativity. Communication is also an essential skill. Without it, you cannot be able to manage a fruitful relationship with the client. Those who have difficulty communicating do not meet the minimum requirements to be a coach. In an ideal world, is there anything that you would change about your role as a coach? This may sound arrogant, but I would not change anything about my way of being a coach or training coaches, because what I am today is the result of years of experience in both corporate world and the world of coaching. The protocols I use have been effective with all our customers, and the things that work do not need to be changed. Obviously, if the scenarios were to change or if it was necessary to implement the method with new protocols, I would not hesitate to change them. In these past few years we have managed hundreds of customers, and all of them have achieved results of some kind. So, to this day I have no regrets. Is there one particular thing that you could not live without? My family. One of the reasons why I embarked on this new career path reactions of a person under pressure. These may manifest as outbursts of frustrations, but also as moments of anger, lies, stories that the customer tells to himself and to you to avoid appearing responsible for his situation. One of the most valuable skills that a coach gives to the client is the ability to remain calm, lucid and analytical when everyone is in the grip of anxiety. The second important skill for the coach is leadership. There are many definitions of leadership, but my personal definition is to lead a team or a person to be independently productive and to achieve predefined goals. The third skill to which I give great importance is empathy: knowing how to recognise the emotional condition of the client while remaining assertive and lucid. It is also important to suspend judgement. Judging a situation or a customer, in addition to being wrong from a relational point of view, is very often a source of error because it is difficult to understand the reason for a customer’s situation. A coach should never make considerations about the nature of the client or about what he is or what he should be, but he should help him find his answers and then support him in the execution of the project. Finally, another fundamental skill is knowing how to wait. Like a good farmer waiting for the fruits they grow to ripen, without doing anything else, a coach must respect the timing of his coachee. The client must come to his own conclusions and must be able to do what there is to do in his own way and at his own pace, without forcing his hand. Obviously, you cannot exclude essential skills such as problemsolving and communication, but I

Marnix De Troyer DTM Advisory Services Jo Maes Ordina Claire Lauzol PRAGMA Claus Wechselmann and Stéphane Beemelmans PD - Berater der öffentlichen Hand GmbH Dr. MarkWeigelt brains GmbH Hannes Müller Lufthansa Consulting Dionisis Grigoropoulos Logistics Way 14 16 18 20 26 28 31

Riccardo Rossini Egon Zehnder Eva Gladek Metabolic Robert Plisko HTA Consulting Mirian Izquierdo Comerciando Global Jonas Svanäng reLean Cyrill A. Staeger Trifft Management & Consulting GmbH Björn Albrecht McKinsey & Company EUROPE 32 34 36 38 40 42 44

CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 Marnix De Troyer DTM Advisory Services CEO and Founder of About Marnix De Troyer Marnix is a visionary leader with multi-industry experience (Healthcare, Retail, Automotive, Manufacturing, Telco, Energy, Real Estate, Financial Services (Banking, Insurance). He brings more then 20 years of experience in Financial Services in several management roles as well business as IT oriented. This, along with 6 years of experience as CEO in a large multinational Management Consultancy Company. Building and implementing the right strategy to drive organizational growth, performance and profitability, leading digital strategic innovation and transformation, with an extra focus on people management & company culture, P&L responsibility, building customer relationships are some of his strong assets that can be an advantage to realize the strategic goals of your organization. - BELGIUM - - 14 -

CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - 15 - Firm Profile DTM Advisory Services focuses on 3 key domains : CxO Advisory We deliver specialized strategic advisory towards CxO levels, based on extended industry knowledge towards multinationals, SME’s and independents to define and reposition their (digital) strategy and business model to be ready for the future including extra focus on the new way of (digital) working and customer interaction. Strategic Management Consulting Key focus domains • Global strategic advisory and leadership coaching towards C-levels • Leadership Coaching based on best practices and experience • Coaching - mentoring new startups & young entrepreneurs • M&A - Due Diligence & Post Merger Integration • Defining and implementing the right strategy to guarantee business and profit growth • Define and implement Target Operating Models to guarantee business & IT alignment and collaboration • Transformation Strategy - Move to Digital • Strive towards Operational efficiency • (Digital) Customer experience optimization - E-commerce • Organizational Transformation & Change Management • From Strategy to execution - Program Management Professional Speakers / workshops Based on our extended experience in CxO Advisory and our key focus domains in strategic management consulting we are also available as professional speakers to speak towards boards, management teams, on events etc... regarding the following topics : • Leadership • Collaborative Selling how to boost your business and sales engine • Innovation (e.g. E-Com, Industry 4.0, Become the hospital of the future,...) • Change - BELGIUM -

Jo Maes CEO of Ordina About Jo Maes Jo Maes (1968) has been a member of the Management Board since 1 January 2017. On June 30, 2020, he was reappointed for a period of four years. In his role as CEO, he is responsible for general operations, communications & marketing, HR, sustainability, commercial affairs and portfolio, and business development. www.ordina.be CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - BELGIUM - - 16 -

Firm Profile Ordina is the digital business partner that harnesses technology and market know-how to give its clients an edge. We help our clients to stay ahead of change, sustainably. With digital end-to-end solutions. By being distinctive and by adding value in the (value) chain. By anticipating and responding to new digital ecosystems. And first and foremost, through co-creation with our clients in high performance teams. We call this Ahead of change. We do this by using smart solutions to connect technology, business challenges and people. We help our clients to accelerate, to develop smart applications, to launch new digital services and ensure that people embrace those services. This is how we give our clients a digital edge and help them stay ahead of change. Digitalisation helps organisations to remain relevant and agile. Now and in the future. This allows you to anticipate and respond more quickly to changes and ensures that you are able to gain and maintain a sustainable competitive edge, by working together in new digital ecosystems or making use of the power of disruptive technologies. Staying ahead of change, sustainably. That is the core of what we stand for and everything we do. We are the business partner that uses digital strategies based on high performance teams to help our clients realise sustainable business transformations. And by doing so, remain ahead of change. We do this by connecting technology, business challenges and people. We help our clients to increase their speed, develop smart digital applications and launch new digital services. What do we do? As a digital business partner, we offer our clients a wide range of smart and innovative solutions for challenges in the fields of strategy, organisation and digitalisation. We do this by providing advice on the right digital end-to-end solutions, the development and implementation of sustainable software solutions, and by designing and managing IT landscapes. In short, we provide optimum solutions and platforms and the design and management of digital landscapes to help our clients stay ahead of change. In other words, we help our clients in every phase of their transformation process. Using a clear and simple approach, so our clients know exactly what they can expect from Ordina, in every phase of our partnership. We focus on the creation of added value for our clients. To deliver this, we use technology as the response to organisational challenges and we anticipate future challenges. We support our clients in their transformation on five fronts, which are our business propositions: high performance teams, data-driven, business platforms & cloud, digital acceleration and cybersecurity & compliance. We are active in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. This means that we are close to our customers and really understand their business. We understand the impact technology can have and know how to use it to improve processes and create new business models. And even more importantly: we know what is needed to achieve a successful combination of business and IT. This enables us to advise our clients on the best roadmap for the future. Our core business consists of consulting, technology and outsourcing services that we provide to our clients from our five business propositions. CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - BELGIUM - - 17 -

About Claire Lauzol Claire has been a consultant and coach for over 17 years, specialized in the organization of the “expert sector” (i.e., managing experts within companies, developing leadership of experts and their managers, advising HRD on optimization of an in-house expert track, etc.). She offers a combination of skills in leading change, in coaching (individual, team and organizational levels) and in educational engineering to create and implement innovative solutions that meet the challenges the companies she consults with face. By capitalizing on her experience, Claire is particularly skilled in pooling the collective intelligence within entities to help provide them with agile systems to be used in connection with strategic project deployment. Claire is co-author of a book on this subject entitled “Les expert(e)s dans l’entreprise - développement des expertises, management des filières experts” published by Editions MAXIMA and “Coachez vos collaborateurs” published by Editions EYROLLES - Collection BASIC. Claire holds a post-graduate degree (DESS) in management, with a major in Human Dynamics and Organizational Development. She is a Transformance Pro (CT 32) certified coach and accredited by Forum Ouvert, MBTI Levels I and II, Lumina Spark, Belbin Team Roles and non-violent communication. As a practitioner of Appreciative Inquiry for several years, Claire also uses this method when providing support services and is currently in the process of being certified by Case Western Reserve University. CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - FRANCE - - 18 - PRAGMA Partner at Claire Lauzol

Firm Profile PRAGMA is a Management consulting and Professional Coaching Firm founded in 1975. Partners have built up the Firm on the foundation of strong roots tied to openness to others and interdisciplinary knowledge of people at the workplace. PRAGMA has been supporting corporate leaders who realize the importance of team dynamics and managerial practices - especially those that position people as the driving force behind project performance. We support our clients by designing operational and transformational support in line with our convictions and that are based on value creation. We have developed 3 complementary approaches: 1) Advice and support for Business Expert Programs Establishing a Business Expert Program - from coconstruction to deployment: defining the vision with the EXCOM or Technical Division, identifying strategic fields of expertise, co-construction of definitions and criteria grids, co-definition of how the Program and various components and bodies will function, support with implementation. 2) Coaching for experts and their managers Individual coaching for high-level experts on very specific issues: strategic contribution (technical innovation proposals), communication impact, transfer of know-how, etc. 3) Career and personal development pathways for experts and managers of experts PRAGMA also assists companies after a Business Expert Program has been set up to design and drive forward career and personal development pathways in leadership for experts and their managers. We can also act as stakeholders in existing pathways. CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - FRANCE - - 19 - www.pragma-management.fr 45 Years of expertise 95% of our partner clients renew their contractual commitments 1500 companies supported in 54 countries

Managing Directors of PD – Berater der öffentlichen Hand GmbH Stéphane Beemelmans Contact Stéphane Beemelmans and Claus Wechselmann PD – Berater der öffentlichen Hand GmbH Friedrichstraße 149, 10117 Berlin, Germany Tel: +49 30 2576790 www.pd-g.de Claus Wechselmann & CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - GERMANY - - 20 -

What first attracted the two of you to your roles at PD? Stéphane: I was working in different roles at both state and federal level for more than two decades. There, I became very familiar with the structures of public administration. I saw the strengths of the public sector, but I also saw the untapped great potential across different levels. Becoming Managing Director of PD in 2016 was a fascinating opportunity. I could bring all my knowledge into a consulting company that had dedicated itself to one goal: shaping the public administration of the future. I am convinced that only by modernising public administration, we can provide citizens and businesses with efficient public infrastructure in the long term. Last but not least, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it obvious how important the digital transformation of the public sector is in times of crisis to keep society functioning, especially in the context of digital education. However, consulting for such purposes will only work if client and consultancy are equal partners. It is therefore important that consultants are not only experts in their respective fields but also understand how public administration works. This is what makes PD stand out: our public customers are our partners, and we are jointly developing innovative and suitable solutions to existing challenges – sustainable solutions that bring real added value. Our claim sums it up: for the public sector of tomorrow. Claus: Thanks to my former roles and professional experience in international corporations, I have a solid understanding of both the private sector and public © PD – Berater der öffentlichen Hand GmbH CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - GERMANY - - 21 -

When it comes to regionalisation, PD basically pursues two goals. Firstly, we want to be closer to our clients so we can reach them faster when they need us. In addition to our headquarters in Berlin, we have opened offices in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Nuremberg and Wiesbaden. Secondly, we are reducing work travel for our consultants, which improves both their personal wellbeing and contributes to climate protection efforts. Finally, specialisation means generating more knowledge and skills for our public customers. We achieve this by hiring new employees with the appropriate expertise – but also by offering our employees a wide range of internal and external training opportunities. This is part of our brand identity. We can only deliver the best possible advice and support to our customers if we are always up to date in terms of knowledge, methods, and management tools. Other factors that contribute to our continuously high-quality consulting services are flexibility, agile thinking and acting as well as the ability to anticipate upcoming developments – and to quickly integrate them into our consulting toolbox, where applicable. Stéphane: Another major challenge for the public administration, which will become even more urgent in the future, is the increasing skills shortage that results from demographic developments. By 2030, more than 1.2 million employees will be leaving the public service due to reaching state pension age, and this number will increase to almost 2.6 million people by 2040. Studies forecast up to 816,000 vacancies in the public sector by 2030. There will not only be a lack of administrative employees, but also specialists in key fields such as education, digitalisation, health and care. In the “war for talent”, the private sector has a competitive advantage over the public sector, which will even intensify in the years to come. Private sector our customers to carry out future projects on their own and to pass on this knowledge to other public organisations as well. Claus: Each year, the federal government, the federal states and local authorities as well as other public institutions in Germany award contracts with a volume of approximately €500 billion to private companies. This is a huge amount – and it is the taxpayers’ money. Due to increasingly complex requirements and dependencies as well as the increasing number of projects carried out simultaneously, deadlines are often not met, and costs are skyrocketing. Therefore, our consulting activities aim at gradually increasing the capabilities of our public clients to improve focus on the end users. What significant challenges has PD faced in the past years, and how have you overcome them? Claus: Undoubtedly, the slow pace of digitalisation is one of the major challenges for the public sector. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this has come to the fore like never before. The authorities’ technical equipment varies greatly and uniform standards, sufficient funding, and qualified personnel for modernising IT infrastructure are lacking. Certainly, the crisis has accelerated digitalisation efforts in Germany – but this has been less dynamic compared to other industrialised countries. This is just one example of the areas we advise on. We see a lot of demand for consultancy services in this area. Our response to this continuously high demand is a combination of growth, regionalisation, and specialisation. In terms of resources, we continue to grow consistently. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of our employees has doubled to more than 700. administration. When speaking to project managers in public institutions, I am impressed by their creative drive and how they embrace change. I treat them with respect and advise them both neutrally and openly. What does this mean in practice? If, during project initiation, we conclude that there are financial or other important reasons not to go ahead with the implementation of a project, we advise against it – even if this means that we might lose a possible contract. This is why PD is a unique player in the consulting market: our main goal, just like that of our public sector clients, is to serve public interest, and so maximising profits is not our priority. PD consultants are driven by the benefit to society and the individual resulting from their work. The freedom to think independently and to speak honestly characterises our brand: we are pioneers with the highest standards of quality and professionalism. In what ways does offering consultancy services to the public sector differ from providing the same in the private sector? Stéphane: Compared to private companies, public sector organisations are structured as rigid line organisations. They think and act in distinct technical areas of responsibility. In public institutions, there is sometimes a lack of willingness to work on pragmatic solutions across departments and federal levels. We notice that public authorities often still think in terms of administrative procedures and responsibilities. I believe that authorities can only be truly resilient and innovative when they are able to think and work in terms of projects. In keeping with our company statute, we share our experience from consultancy projects with customers and shareholders. We want to enable CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - GERMANY - - 22 -

companies generally pay higher salaries and employees have better chances of being promoted there. To become more competitive in this area, the public sector needs to improve so that it remains an attractive employer as well. This includes establishing a more agile working culture, creating an innovative environment, and developing a differentiated incentive system, such as family-friendly working hours, worklife balance and performance-based bonuses. When consulting our public clients on human resources matters, we are always aiming at improving employee recruitment and retention. This imminent shortage of skilled workers, digitalisation and finally, the enormous infrastructural backlog – when it comes to both maintaining existing public infrastructure and climate-friendly upgrades – have led to a dynamically increasing demand for PD’s consulting services. The immense growth in the number of PD public shareholders has even reinforced this trend. In early 2017, we had eight shareholders; in early 2022, we had 146. Meeting these challenges on the demand side and responding to this with the necessary flexibility was certainly our largest organisational task in recent years. In summary, PD has grown tenfold in size since 2017. What would you say is the part of your work that fascinates you the most, and what motivates you to achieve success in your work? Claus: It brings me great joy to help shape the future of the public sector. Working for the common good and helping public authorities to better cope with their many challenges is deeply meaningful work. This benefits our country and every one of us. I could not imagine any other job that combines diversity, challenges, and personal development opportunities in this way. Daily, I experience how our public clients trust and appreciate our work, which brings great personal satisfaction. In late 2021, we were awarded “Hidden Champion of the Consulting Market 2022/2023” in the Public Sector category. Our customers supported us in gaining this award and we are more than happy about this extraordinary sign of confidence! The award stands for the high level of commitment and high quality the PD consultants deliver in our projects, also supported by the PD back office team. Stéphane: I can only agree with Claus here. The prestigious “Hidden Champion” award has been issued since 2008, based on an extensive survey of executives. In 2021, the Public Sector category was introduced, and PD won it! We are delighted by this honour, the result of PD’s excellent work in recent years. This includes our sound project work and our activities for connecting important stakeholders at various levels by bringing together our customers and partners. It is great to see how many good ideas and projects come out of this networking. On a daily basis, we exchange ideas with administrative professionals who are engaged in driving innovation. We love seeing that we can make a difference and it really is great fun to work with these highly motivated and talented people. How have you seen the public consultancy sector in Germany change during your careers? Claus: I have noticed that the consulting needs of the public sector have increased significantly. This is not only reflected by the large number of consulting fields, but also by the intensity, complexity and, in some cases, the duration of the required consulting services. These days, a larger share of consulting services is based on framework agreements. The public sector has become an important market segment for large consulting companies and offers highly demanding projects. Looking ahead, it will be important that the best consultancies are contracted more often and that significantly more risks are transferred to the contractors. Stéphane: What makes us special as an in-house consultancy is that we share our knowledge with our customers and shareholders. We also promote the transfer of knowledge within the public sector. We are therefore committed to contributing to public sector conferences and contributing fresh perspectives by publishing studies and recommendations for action. At our annual PD-SummerSchool, executives get the chance to share their experience with and views on current public sector challenges and best practices. I am convinced that it is of utmost importance for executives to network and to strive for cooperation across government departments. This will enable modernisation efforts to be successful. To contribute to this exchange of knowledge and to networking across public sector organisations is not only our standard but also our obligation. We want to enable our customers to carry out future projects on their own and to pass on this knowledge to other public organisations as well. ❝ ❝ CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - GERMANY - - 23 -

CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - GERMANY - - 24 - blockchain will soon become a natural part of public IT solutions, and reform them at the same time. I think that we are on the way to digital governance – and that this will be irreversible. Can you share anything about what the future may look like for PD beyond 2022? Stéphane: We will further strengthen our position as a networker to promote the exchange of knowledge and make best practices available. With our newly founded Science Group, we act as an interface between science and administration and contribute to, for example, harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence for the public sector and reducing reservations about AI methods. We are also increasingly providing information via webcasts and podcasts so that even more stakeholders can benefit from our expertise. Ultimately, our task will also be to accompany administrations on their way from vertical task fulfilment towards horizontal approaches. Otherwise, they will not be able to successfully handle major issues of the present, e.g. in the fields of security, climate, sustainability, globalisation and protection of our democracy. Claus: We consider ourselves a role model for the European market. Other European countries, such as Finland and Denmark, have also established in-house public consultancies that advise administrations so that they can become more modern and sustainable – which is in the best interest of the taxpayers. In theRepublic of Cyprus, an in-house consultancy is being planned, which will continue PD’s successful consultancy activities locally. Cyprus is a PD shareholder, and since 2014, we have been advising the country’s Ministry of Finance on the gradual modernisation of the tax and financial administration. We are proud that PD’s consulting services have sparked this development in Cyprus! Are there any trends in the public sector that you feel especially excited about? Stéphane: There are indications that public sector organisations are starting to improve their cooperation in some areas. For example, the PD publication ‘Improving Cybersecurity Through Cooperation Between Federal States’ shows that coordinated cooperation in the field of IT security is one way of effectively countering cyberattacks. Another example is the digitalisation of local authorities. The success of the local authorities in the district of Hochsauerlandkreis is proof that digitalisation can advance rapidly in rural areas if local authorities share tasks and make the results available to everyone. Apart from digitalisation and cooperation, sustainability is one of the most important topics in the years to come for the public sector. Not least due to the worsening climate crisis, all levels of government are now dealing with questions of sustainability. Every local authority, every district and every federal state must implement the goals of the German Sustainable Development Strategy. We support this goal with a growing team of experts for sustainability, the environment and climate protection. We are developing new approaches to how local authorities and the federal government can leverage their potential to make Germany sustainable in an effective and efficient way. Claus: One trend I perceive is the increasing speed in which changes and modernisation projects are being implemented. Public sector organisations are currently reinventing themselves as they adapt new forms of working and cutting-edge technology – with all the challenges and learnings that come with such change processes. The degree of automation will increase significantly, which will accelerate speed and responsiveness even further. Even technologies such as AI or Stéphane Beemelmans

CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - GERMANY - - 25 - Stéphane Beemelmans Managing Director “As Managing Director of PD, I am responsible for PD’s unit that covers construction, infrastructure, and municipal consultancy. We advise the German federal government, the federated states and the local authorities on infrastructure and support the various stakeholders in the public health sector with specific expertise. Our special strength is project management for large construction projects of public sector clients, which are being developed as partnership models or technology partnerships. Before joining PD, I was working as Head of Department in the Federal Ministry of the Interior and as Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry of Defence. Due to my experience on the client side, I am fully aware of the internal administrative and legal obstacles that the public sector is facing in its modernisation processes. Since having joined PD as Managing Director in 2016, I have been speaking on a daily basis with executives at all levels of local authorities, who are committed to modernising public administration. The increasing number of our public shareholders reflects just how interested the public sector is in consulting services. In addition to the federal government, our 146 shareholders currently include 11 federated states, around 90 local authority shareholders, many university hospitals, and large municipal hospitals as well as corporations, public companies, research institutions and the Republic of Cyprus.” Claus Wechselmann Managing Director “I joined PD as a Director shortly after it was founded in 2009 and I have been Managing Director since 2016. With more than 700 employees spanning six locations in Germany, PD is the major in-house consultancy for the public sector. PD covers a comprehensive range of topics including consulting and management services regarding all aspects of modern administration, e.g. extensive administrative modernisation and process optimisation projects, construction projects, medical technology, IT projects, complex procurement procedures and the management of large-scale projects. We are more than just consultants – we specialise in building lasting partnerships with our clients, and our main focus is on transferring knowledge to the public sector and developing networks between public organisations. All of PD’s clients are national, federal state or local authorities or other kinds of public bodies and institutions. Because we are 100% publicly owned, we can be commissioned directly as an in-house consultancy. Before joining PD, I worked for Siemens AG, a start-up, and IBM. I held various management roles, worked in Asia for a number of years, and was responsible for consulting as well as sales and business strategy. Most recently, as a manager for IBM Germany, I was responsible for strategic business development in the public sector. One focus area of my work was to establish partnerships with public authorities. This is what brought me to PD’s predecessor company, ÖPP Deutschland AG – Partnerships Germany (PD), in 2009. It had been set up with the aim of advising public sector organisations at all federal levels regarding the opportunities of partnership models. Another goal was to assist public sector bodies in initiating contracts and shaping joint projects with private partners. The company itself was a public-private partnership and in 2014, I became a member of the Board of Directors. As a Board member, I was jointly responsible for PD’s conversion into a public company in 2016. Since I became Managing Director in 2016, I have been responsible for PD’s “strategic modernisation of public administration” unit. This unit covers digital governance, public security and finance, IT, human resources, mobility and organisational experts. Our specialist teams advise on strategic issues, support comprehensive digitisation programmes and, if necessary, provide crisis and interim management services.” Claus Wechselmann © PD – Berater der öffentlichen Hand GmbH

About Dr. Mark Weigelt The Managing Director of the brains consultant network, Dr. Mark Weigelt, is one of the few German management professionals who successfully combines international top consulting, line management, and start-up experience. Before holding management positions as an Executive Director at UBS, he was a partner at Roland Berger as well as being a manager and consultant for the Boston Consulting Group in Europe and North America. In 2016 he founded his own consulting company: brains. With brains, he supports multinationals and medium-sized companies with carefully selected management consultants from the brains network. He focuses on business expansion, sales & service productivity, and optimization of operations & IT. His clients range from industries as insurance & banking, industrial goods & services, to the consumer goods & retail sector. The client portfolio includes EURO STOXX and DAX enterprizes as well as SMEs, many of them companies owned by PEs. Mark Weigelt holds a doctorate in business informatics about distributed artificial intelligence, and he studied business administration as well as electrical engineering at Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. Mark Weigelt Dr. Founding Partner of brains CEO Today Management Consul t ing Award s 2022 - GERMANY - - 26 -

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Mjk3Mzkz