About me
I am Lennart Werner and I think about data and AI from the business side — potential first, technology second. For over ten years I have been working on turning that into real change, from strategy all the way to where it hurts in day-to-day operations.
Today I lead the Data & AI Strategy Solution at b.telligent as its Solution Lead: mapping potential, prioritising use cases, planning a data and AI journey that a sceptical CFO will actually sign off, and then seeing the change through until it lands in day-to-day operations.
I started with data governance at a major bank, back when BCBS 239 was putting the whole industry under pressure. After that I spent seven years taking a data management product from first idea to an established solution in the financial sector, while building the consulting team behind it. Both still shape how I look at things: data is not an IT topic, it is a company’s sensory system, and the interesting questions are almost never the technical ones.
What I stand for
Four convictions run through nearly everything I do, and through everything on this blog:
- Technology is no longer the bottleneck. The level that satisfies most companies is simply a solved problem today, and what anyone can buy differentiates no one. The difference lies in knowing where data and AI move your own company forward, and in the consistency with which that change then actually happens.
- Business leads, people and technology enable. Reverse that order and you build impressive platforms with precisely zero effect on the bottom line.
- Momentum beats commitment. Nobody signs off three years of budget today for a target picture no one has touched yet. So you plan to the next horizon, deliver visible value, and earn the one after that.
- Proof of value instead of proof of concept. “Is it technically possible?” is rarely the interesting question. “Does it create measurable value here, and can we run it ourselves afterwards?” is.
Focus areas
- Data & AI strategy and data & AI journeys: potential analysis, use case portfolio, horizon plan
- Data governance, metadata and data quality management, data modelling
- Analytics and AI between ambition and everyday work: from metric to decision, from idea to production use case
- Change and adoption, meaning turning an approved strategy into lived practice: prioritisation, enablement, visible early wins
- Building teams and consulting practices, requirements management, enablement rather than rented expertise
- Industry experience mainly in financial services: large and mid-sized banks
Career
since 2023
Data & AI Strategy Solution Lead
b.telligent, Frankfurt
Advising management and business teams where strategy papers meet daily operations, plus ownership of the Data & AI Strategy Solution: from potential analysis through use case portfolio and operating model to the horizon plan. Exactly the methodology I write about on this blog.
2018 – 2022
Director Business Consulting & Analysis
Synabi Business Solutions GmbH
Built a line organisation of around 20 business consultants and analysts out of previously project-driven structures. Responsible for more than ten parallel data management projects and, as one of three members of the board of directors, for the functional and architectural direction of the software as well as company strategy.
2016 – 2019
Product Owner & Architect
Synabi Business Solutions GmbH
Strategic development of the data management product D‑QUANTUM from project tool to standard software, including the requirements and specification process.
1 August 2016
Founding of the Frankfurt office
Synabi Business Solutions GmbH
The second office after Munich, closer to the financial services clients.
2012 – 2016
Business Analyst Data & Analytics
Commerzbank AG
Data governance in the context of BCBS 239: concept, vendor selection and integration of a platform for visualising and decentrally maintaining risk metric systems. Before that, report development and development of the BI strategy.
2009 – 2012
Managing Partner
LEWEBA GmbH
Founded out of freelance work and grown to a team of around ten: market analysis, sales strategies and software development in the ICT space. The company continued as wewicon after it was sold.
Education
Information Systems at TU Darmstadt, Master of Science with specialisations in project management, technology and innovation management, information visualisation and machine learning. Plus a project management certification (GPM) and a six-month leadership programme at Kienbaum.
Away from work
Born in 1989. Anyone who has travelled with me knows that cooking and navigation are my departments; everything else is negotiable. I like eating my way through unfamiliar cities, and whatever sticks gets cooked again at home; the bread I bake myself anyway. Only wine and whisky are exempt from all this foodie business; I find both overrated. Other people detect forest floor, wet chalk and a hint of leather in there; to me that sounds less like a drink than like my dachshund’s field report after an hour in the undergrowth. Jonas is his name, and the rest of my time belongs to him, to hiking trails, to sailing, and to considerably more smart home technology than anyone needs. If you have been wondering why harbours, flywheels and bakeries keep turning up in my writing: now you know.