Gerd W. Naschenweng

I had the pleasure of working with Gerd’s leadership for two years at eurofunk, and I can honestly say he has been one of the most supportive and empowering managers I’ve worked with. From day one, Gerd created an environment that encouraged learning, autonomy, and open communication. He has a great talent for balancing technical depth with clear vision and leadership. Whether it was during planning, or one-on-one discussions, Gerd always provided thoughtful guidance and constructive feedback that helped me grow, both technically and professionally. What I particularly appreciated was his trust: he gave me space to take ownership, experiment, and push forward as I transitioned into a Test Automation role. His openness, and genuine care for the people on his team made him not just a great manager, but someone I looked forward to working with every day. I’m truly grateful for the experience of working in his team and would recommend Gerd to anyone looking for an inspiring and grounded technical leader.

Gerd Naschenweng is an accomplished Tech Lead with a wealth of experience in leading and guiding teams towards success. During our time working together, I have always been impressed by his commitment to achieving goals, promoting and mentoring his team, and providing guidance and structure. Gerd is a true leader who brings his technical expertise, creativity, and passion to every project he works on. He has a knack for keeping the team on track while remaining flexible and adaptable to changes. His ability to motivate and inspire the team, coupled with his excellent communication skills, has resulted in numerous successful projects that have exceeded expectations. Overall, Gerd is an exceptional tech lead who possesses the right mix of technical expertise, leadership, and people skills. It is my pleasure to recommend him without hesitation. Any organization that has the opportunity to work with him is sure to benefit greatly from his contributions.

Gerd was my direct manager for over 4 years while I was team lead for Peaksolution B2C at Alturos Destinations. During that time he managed the Peaksolution R&D department with 5 teams and approximately 20 persons. He worked tirelessly to ensure the department was reaching our goals, to run the daily business and to motivate and aid persons in their development. Despite his high workload he was always calm, cheerful and also available for questions, guidance and to listen to concerns. His management style was trusting and giving freedom where possible, while also covering your back. His support reached far beyond of what could be expected from a manager. I really enjoyed having Gerd as my line manager.

Gerd is a first rate J2EE architect with skills in the management of people, vendors and service providers. He has added enormous value to clients by reducing their license revenue spend through innovative approaches and architecting solid solutions. He always has the client's interests at heart. His passion for technology extends beyond his professional capacity.

... the one thing I most enjoy having Gerd as a manager/team lead, is that we as a team can challenge each other to find best ways to solve complex problems. This I would say is greatly attributed to his highly technical knowledge. I have certainly learned a great deal from him and recommend his work with no hesitation.

Gerd has been in a contracting capacity with Vodacom performing vital roles in the establishment of systems architecture, execution of the implementation of architecture, migration of technology platforms centered around the WebSphere stack of technologies as well as other technology platforms. He is highly experienced in systems design, implementation and operation of these systems. He is extremely detail oriented and functions exceptionally well within a team environment as well as in an individual capacity. His relationship with his peers, superiors and direct reports are exceptional. Lastly his breadth of knowledge around information technology is vast, but he still manages an exceptional balance at a detail level in a fast paced environment.

During my employment at FNB as Head of Development J2EE (February 2004 to May 2005) I had the privilege of working quite closely with Gerd. He was instrumental in contributing to the successful stabilization of the "Cube" Java Framework, selection of a new Branch Automation Platform as well as the successful integration of my team from old to new standards and processes

... I think the greatest compliment a project manager can offer to a past staf member is the willingness to take that person to a new project: Mr. Naschenweng remains at the top of my list.

Business case:

As Head of Department for eOCS Suite Development, I lead 24 developers across 3 agile teams in Klagenfurt and St. Johann im Pongau, driving technical excellence and innovation in next-generation emergency communication solutions. My focus is on eOCS>COM, the communication module, delivering a seamless web-based interface for control centers to unify dispatch, communication, and monitoring systems.

Scope of work & projects:

• Team & Location Optimization: Redistributed external development resources to hybrid settings and established pure co-located teams in Klagenfurt, enhancing collaboration and reducing overhead.
• Agile Transformation: Coached and mentored teams through the transition from SAFe to a flow-based/Kanban value-stream organization, fostering autonomy, adaptability, and efficiency.
• Strategic Leadership: Took over 3 teams to focus on eOCS>COM strategy, driving the creation of an integrated next-gen communication system.
• Skill Development Programme (SDP): Initiated and designed the SDP (aligned with the Dreyfus Model), now a blueprint across eurofunk departments. Transformed team culture with structured pathways, self-assessments, cross-functional collaboration, career paths, detailed job descriptions, KPAs, KPIs, and skill matrices.
• Cross-Training Initiative (Oct 2023): Solved "too many frontend engineers" by launching "Skill Development (BE & Fullstack)". Cross-trained 33 engineers in Java and SpringBoot within 2 weeks. 12 completed Spring Academy Certification, and all 33 became Fullstack developers in 3 months, shipping production code.
• Coding Dojos (Nov 2023+): Organized 8 Coding Dojos, empowering developers to lead sessions and experiment with mob programming.
• Team & Location Growth: Doubled development team capacity in Klagenfurt, expanded office space for future growth, and established two development streams focused on reducing technical debt through modularization and clean code, providing blueprints to 80+ developers across the division.
• Performance Improvement: Worked with teams to improve throughput, reduce cycle time, and cultivate a culture of autonomous development.

Business case:

Alturos Destinations provides with it’s Peaksolution platform e-commerce and digitalization solutions for the tourism industry in the Alpine regions of Europe. As Tech Lead and Development Manager for the Peaksolution™ e-commerce platform, I led the development pipeline across 6 teams with 34 engineers (on-site and remote in Lviv, Ukraine). My role involved managing all development initiatives for the responsive, mobile, and self-service channels, delivering 15+ software releases per week across 25+ installations in Austria, Italy, Germany, France, and Switzerland.

My responsibilities included the technical lead and coordination of the B2B, B2C, API, MyServices, BI/DWH, and Integration teams, serving as the interface to customers, project management, product management, and support channels across the organization.

Scope of work & projects:

• Team Growth & DevOps Transformation: Transformed a reactive team into a DevOps- and value-stream-driven department, growing the team from 12 to 34 engineers in 3 years.
• High-Velocity Delivery: Led a highly agile team delivering 15+ software releases per week, ensuring rapid time-to-market and customer satisfaction.
• Architecture & Integration: Introduced clean architecture and a “Connector Hub”, enabling seamless integration with 30+ tourism providers (accommodation, ski rental, passes, events, lake cruises). Accelerated 3rd-party integrations and scaled from 4 to 35 customer installations.
• Platform Innovation: Developed a customizable templating engine for rapid deployment of white-label marketplaces.
• Operational Excellence: Achieved an 85% charge-out rate and transformed developers into technical SPOCs for customers. The MyServices platform enabled self-service for providers and tourism regions, reducing support overhead.

Business case:

As CTO of bidorbuy.co.za, Africa’s largest e-commerce marketplace, I completely restructured IT operations, transforming a legacy infrastructure of 5 non-redundant servers (no monitoring, backups, or DevOps) into a scalable, high-availability private cloud environment with limited budget.

Under my leadership, the IT team grew from 3 to 16 multi-functional engineers, implementing an agile CI/CD process (JIRA, Bitbucket, Jenkins) to enable multiple daily deployments. The platform now supports 100,000 orders/day across all channels.

Scope of work & projects:

• IT Infrastructure Overhaul: Designed and deployed a highly available private cloud (Xen clusters on IBM/Dell BladeCenter, CentOS) with redundant storage arrays.
• Database Migration: Migrated from Oracle Standard Edition to Enterprise PostgreSQL (active-active, highly redundant).
• Performance & Scalability: Implemented Apache Solr search stack for 3.7M products (10ms response time/query) and ElasticSearch cluster for log/incident management (Graylog/Logstash, 600 msg/sec).
• E-Commerce Mail Infrastructure: Developed PowerMTA/Port25 infrastructure capable of transmitting up to 2M emails/hour.
• DevOps & Automation: Established full DevOps infrastructure (New Relic, SaltStack, Zabbix, PagerDuty) with full SDLC automation and continuous integration.
• Platform Innovation: Deployed native e-commerce apps for Windows, Android, iOS, and Blackberry; migrated 500M product images to Cloudinary; implemented SEO/SEM tooling (GTM, Merchant Centre, Rich Cards).
• Customer Support: Implemented Kayako system to service 1.2M customers/month; migrated all sites to SSL without SEO ranking loss.
• Team Growth: Managed 15 IT staff covering all IT and Ops projects, fostering a culture of collaboration and technical excellence.

Business case:

As Director for UbuntuDeal (a Groupon clone originally developed by a small team in Russia), I led the transition to a new South African team, rebuilding the platform to meet local market demands.

Scope of work & projects:

• Team Transition: Successfully migrated development and DevOps from Russia to South Africa, establishing a local team of 3 developers/DevOps staff to ensure continuity and scalability.
• Platform Rearchitecting: Completely rebuilt the group-buying website from scratch with a responsive design (Bootstrap/jQuery) and deployed it on private cloud servers (PHP, MySQL, Nginx).
• SEO & SEM Leadership: Managed the full implementation of SEO/SEM strategies (Google Analytics) to drive traffic, user engagement, and conversion rates.
• Strategic Technology Planning: Aligned the technical roadmap with business goals to optimize performance, scalability, and user experience for a high-traffic group-buying platform.

Business case:

Initially hired to design and implement a customer acquisition solution, I transitioned into the role of Acting Manager and Solutions Architect, leading the design team and defining architectural roadmaps for Vodacom’s customer channels (consumer, corporate, call centers). My responsibilities spanned 12 call centers, 550 retail franchises, and 15,000 users, with a focus on application and infrastructure architecture solutions.

Scope of work & projects:

• Team & Architectural Leadership: Managed a design team of 15 employees and provided architectural leadership for 3 development teams (60 staff), defining technology enablers and roadmaps to maintain Vodacom’s competitive edge while interacting with C-level and executive management.
• Technology Modernization: Led the migration from legacy WebSphere stack to open-source solutions, driving cost savings and flexibility. Designed and implemented acquisition and score-card systems running on JEE standards.
• SOA & Integration: Established SOA initiatives, including a service registry & repository and an enterprise integration bus. Designed and implemented a standardized web services gateway for B2B transactions.
• Infrastructure Innovation: Designed a pre-production environment based on virtualization technology with 16 logical partitions, simulating five different pre-production environments.
• Process Improvement: Led SDLC and process improvement projects to enhance development efficiency. Designed and implemented the Vodacom Business Portal.
• Compliance & Commercial Leadership: Implemented legislative processes for PCI (Payment Card Industry), SOX, and RICA. Conducted commercial negotiations with vendors (RFP, SOW, budgets).

Business case:

Initially consulted as a Java/J2EE Architect, I transitioned into the role of Chief Architect for FNB’s Branch Banking Technology division, servicing a network of 700 outlets and 14,000+ users. My mandate expanded to apply enterprise architecture principles, streamline the SDLC, and establish an IT strategy to support future business initiatives.

Scope of work & projects:

• Performance & Scalability: Resolved stability and performance issues, scaling system capacity from 50 to 1,500 concurrent users (30x improvement). Assisted the infrastructure team in designing and implementing a fully automated, clustered, and fail-over Blade Centre environment.
• Architecture & Strategy: Defined architectural principles for SDLC to support Risk & Governance. Developed architecture strategy and roadmap to transform branch technology. Designed system infrastructure and led Linux vs. Windows proof-of-concepts. Defined architectural roadmaps for Identity Management and Peripheral Integration via J/XFS.
• Process & Governance: Prepared and presented business cases to improve SDLC (Change Management, Problem Management, Monitoring, Test Management). Key player in Risk & Governance, implementing policies, guidelines, and processes. Facilitated RFI/RFP process to replace the branch software stack.
• ITIL & Monitoring: Served as ITIL champion, assisting in ITIL assessment and providing implementation recommendations. Implemented business case and web-presence/usage monitoring in Blade environment.

Business case:

BG Phoenics GmbH developed a J2EE application for German social insurance groups, a document-centric solution requiring scanning, recognition, indexing, and management of 60,000 documents per hour. My role involved supporting production readiness during the hardware tender process, mediating between hardware providers, and ensuring the application met performance and scalability requirements.

Scope of work & projects:

• Team Leadership: Managed and coordinated a test team of 7 people, ensuring effective collaboration and delivery of quality assurance activities.
• Performance Optimization: Conducted performance optimization and troubleshooting for applications, resolving critical bottlenecks to meet the high-throughput requirements.
• Load Testing: Developed and customized LoadRunner scripts, including additional functionality to generate even load in test scenarios. Utilized the privately developed "UniversalServer" framework to control load tests.
• Performance Measurement: Conducted performance measurement and profiling using Wily Introscope. Analyzed LoadRunner test results to identify and resolve performance issues.
• Infrastructure Tuning: Performed performance tuning of the infrastructure environment, particularly for MQ Workflow, DB2, IBM WebSphere, JVM, and Content Manager.
• Hardware Selection: Led hardware selection for document scanning/imaging (Fujitsu Siemens, IBM, Sun Microsystems) via 3-month lab tests (performance, stability, scalability) to determine the optimal partner.

Business case:

The Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) is a government-funded initiative to drive business development in Botswana. The project focused on a loan origination and appraisal system for commercial, property, agricultural, and livestock sectors, integrating with SAP and SAP Portal Server to deliver a web-based business application.

Scope of work & projects:

• Technical Assistance: Provided critical expertise to bootstrap Java architecture and best practices for appraisal models (commercial, property, agricultural loans).
• Database & Backend: Designed the database model and generic access beans to store/retrieve business data via JDBC.
• SAP Portal Development: Developed SAP portal components (DynPage, JSPDynPage) for seamless user interactions.
• Quality Assurance: Conducted unit and load testing via JUnit to ensure reliability and performance.

Business case:

As Senior J2EE Architect and Team Lead, I led the development of VHV’s Max.Net Extranet web-portal, a mission-critical platform enabling multiple insurance companies to share business processes with brokers and partners. The portal supported all aspects of insurance operations, including policy management, customer data, damage reporting, and contract inquiries.

Scope of work & projects:

• Portal Architecture & Framework: Designed and developed a model-view-controller application framework (XML-based "Struts"-like Model 2) to standardize development across the platform.
• Authentication & Security: Designed and implemented a single-sign-on (SSO) solution using RSA SecurID and Kobil SecOVID, with user authentication via LDAP. Developed a Java Native Interface (JNI) for communication with RSA/Kobil servers and a XML-based configurable authentication framework.
• Mainframe Integration: Developed the Java Middletier (servlets, JavaBeans, JSP) to communicate with the mainframe via CICS Transaction Gateway, enabling invocation of legacy CICS transactions.
• Communication & Reporting: Designed a XML-based communication infrastructure to transform COBOL copybooks into XML beans. Developed a reporting framework based on Apache FOP to generate and serve PDF documents via browser.
• Logging & Performance: Implemented a distributed logging framework (Apache Log4J + IBM MQSeries) and conducted load balancing/scalability tests using Mercury LoadRunner.
• Migration & Deployment: Provided technical assistance in migrating the Visual Age repository to IBM WebSphere Application Developer 5.0. Designed automated J2EE deployment into WebSphere Application Server 4.0 via ANT, Tcl, and Jacl.
• Team Leadership: Managed a team of 5 developers, providing technical project management, coaching, business analysis, and design.

Production links:

• VHV Max.Net Extranet
• VDG Authentication Portal

Business case:

As Senior J2EE Architect and Developer, I led the proof of concept for a web-based document management system, enabling automatic processing of documents (letters, emails, faxes) via a web interface. Back-end processes included archiving new documents into a document server and retrieval functions to access files from optical jukeboxes.

Scope of work & projects:

• Web Application & Integration: Designed and developed a web-based application to retrieve document information from the mainframe via MQ Series and display documents in a browser.
• API Integration: Integrated APIs to retrieve documents via a servlet from optical storage, enabling seamless access to archived files.
• Legacy System Modernization: Developed a 3270 applet to enable users to capture additional information in 3270 applications, bridging modern web interfaces with legacy systems.
• Performance & Validation: Conducted load tests with Mercury LoadRunner to validate system performance, scalability, and reliability.

Business case:

As Technical Project Manager, I led the IT franchise setup for Smart.com’s market expansion into the UK, Japan, and Taiwan, aligning with the company’s restructuring goals to launch in new markets.

Scope of work & projects:

• Market Expansion: Managed and coordinated the IT franchise setup for new market launches, ensuring seamless integration and alignment with business objectives.
• Change Management: Established change management procedures to streamline the distribution of new functionality and updates to franchise outlets.
• Project Coordination: Set up a project office and delegated tasks to team leaders and project managers, ensuring efficient execution and accountability.

Business case:

As Senior System Analyst and Developer, I played a key role in the evolution of Standard Bank’s branch delivery systems, from enhancing the OS/2-based client-server application to leading the proof of concept for migrating to a platform-independent Java-based system. My work supported 400+ branches nationwide, focusing on productivity, real-time transactions, and seamless hardware integration.

Scope of work & projects:

• Platform Migration: Conducted analysis, design, and feasibility study to migrate the large (350+ branches) banking client-server system from OS/2 to Java. Developed a Java interface to communicate and exchange data with the mainframe via IBM CICS Transaction Gateway.
• Hardware Integration & Productivity: Enhanced the OS/2 application to implement additional functionality, including the integration of a Y2K-compliant credit-card processing system and the Instant Card Issue functionality to print and encode ATM cards in branches.
• Teller System: Designed and implemented the Teller System, enabling branches to handle all monetary transactions in real-time.
• Device Management: Developed the "plug 'n play" Serial Port Interface, allowing hot-plugging of serial devices (cash dispensers, card readers, cheque readers, card printers) to reduce administration and configuration efforts. Managed the deployment of 200+ card printers and 5,000+ printers across the branch network.

Business case:

As part of the core team for the Standard Bank of South Africa project, I was responsible for bootstrapping the OS/2-based Presentation Manager client-server Branch Delivery System. My work focused on developing critical branch banking applications and upskilling Standard Bank developers in C, C++, and OS/2 Presentation Manager.

Scope of work & projects:

• Core Team Contributions: Played a key role in the development of the OS/2-based client-server system, ensuring robust and scalable solutions for branch banking operations.
• Developer Upskilling: Trained and mentored Standard Bank developers in C, C++, and OS/2 Presentation Manager, empowering them to maintain and extend the system independently.
• Customer Information System: Designed and implemented the Customer Information System to manage customer information and utilize key data for marketing purposes.
• Cross-Selling Interface: Developed the Cross-Selling Interface to support customer consultants in their marketing efforts and enhance cross-selling opportunities.
• Remote Management Tool: Developed BDRemote/32, a support tool to remotely control 800+ servers and 10,000+ desktops in the bank’s branch infrastructure, enabling efficient IT operations and support.