We are very pleased to welcome Dr. Holger Greif, an established expert in the field of digitization and subframe transformation to the swissQuant Group.
Holger Greif looks back to a distinguished career in the field of digitalization in the financial industry and we are delighted to welcome such a valuable expert with this wealth of experience to our company. We would like to summarize the last steps of his career and express our excitement that he has chosen to accept the challenge to be a central part of further developing swissQuant Group in the future.
After joining PriceWaterhouseCoopers AG in 2008 to build the Business Technology Management practice, in a second step Holger successfully headed up the consulting practice with over 150 employees, leading in 2015 to a promotion making him head of Digital transformation and CDO of PwC Switzerland. In his new function he created the digital practice of PwC Switzerland, including the acquisition of iBrows and the creation of PwC’s Experience Center. In addition, Holger is active for DigitalSwitzerland, gives multiple keynote speeches and was in the board of F10, a leading FS incubator and accelerator. Read his whole CV here (PDF).
Your CV shows that you have been involved in the wave of digitization in the financial sector from the very beginning on. What are the key learnings that you take with you from this past experience?
There is no “magic way” for the digital transformation – but some clear basic ingredients on the way: Top down commitment; co-creation of ideas with x-functions and representatives from all hierarchies, a clear focus on the implementation and a constant communication to all stakeholders. Really important for me was always to agree on different KPIs to measure success, allow mistakes and to constantly learn. Taking advantage of available data, re-arrange them in new (but still business-driven) context is still an underdeveloped area.
Where do you see a strong potential in B2B digitization in the financial sector?
Rethink your role in the ecosystem – firstly, what is your contribution, how do you create value for your clients and how can you realize cost, scale, and synergy effects. And secondly: the future is for companies that serve well the B2B2C value chain – Leveraging the data, insights and experience with customer interactions and leveraging the scale of economy effects of B2B relationships. Bringing all together: it is all about managing the risks in an efficient way to build and keep the client’s trust.
In your opinion, what factors are necessary to drive this process forward in Switzerland?
Firstly, it’s about the people. A couple of years ago, it started with smaller groups of “diplomatic rebels” who initiated the digital transformation in the company, introducing Design thinking methodologies, involving and building FinTechs, challenging the status quo and achieving first wins. Today and going forward, it is about involving everybody. I love the motto “nobody should be left behind” and the great chance that employees, management, clients, really everybody continuously educate themselves and apply this for the better. Secondly, it’s about delivering your promises in light of your purpose. The current Covid-19 crisis demonstrates clearly how to leverage digital tools and new ways of working, keeping a strong focus but also testing new things.
What motivated you to work for swissQuant Group?
The swissQuant purpose immediately appealed to me: “We help to manage risks in all industries – with sophisticated, instant and efficient decision technologies”. swissQuant Group combines in a fascinating way data analysis and wealth management systems with quantitative mathematical models inspired by the latest findings in biology. I am eager to further expand and scale these skills and teams!
Read also the media article in finews.com: here