Daniel Birke · Munich
Technology leadership with a founder's P&L instinct.
Twenty years building and running digital businesses. I founded and scaled a SaaS to 1,000+ enterprise customers, then led an 80-person product and technology organisation across Germany, Austria and Switzerland for Europe's largest parking operator.
About
From founder to executive leader.
Started coding at fourteen. Founded a SaaS that scaled to 1,000+ enterprise customers. Then led product and technology for Europe's largest parking operator across three countries.
Twenty years across founder, CTO and product leadership seats. I know what it costs to build a platform from zero, and what it takes to turn around one that is already live across three countries.
I build leadership teams that outlast me, deploy AI that survives audit, and run transformations that pay for themselves. At APCOA that meant consolidating legacy systems across Germany, Austria and Switzerland into one cloud architecture while reporting to executive leadership, the Works Council and the IT committee.
“Technology leadership is a stewardship role. The job is to leave the platform, the team, and the P&L stronger than you found them.”
Founder and operator
Built we.io from zero to 1,000+ enterprise customers across five industries. Technology partially acquired in 2023.
Executive at scale
Led an 80-person product, engineering and innovation organisation across Germany, Austria and Switzerland as DACH Head of Product & Innovation at APCOA.
Board and governance exposure
SOC2, GDPR and the EU AI Act delivered as architecture. Regular reporting to executive leadership, the Works Council and IT committees.
Selected work · 2014 to 2026
Five transformations, each one operational.
Initiatives I owned end to end. Each shipped, each measured against a business case.
- 3countries · one platform
Unified cloud platform across DACH
Replaced siloed legacy systems in Germany, Austria and Switzerland with a single Azure data platform at APCOA, the foundation for dynamic pricing and demand forecasting across the portfolio.
Three operating companies, one architecture, one roadmap.
- 93%automated
AI agents in customer operations
Deployed an LLM-based agent layer at APCOA that handled the majority of inbound customer interactions without human touch, in processes that had never been measured before.
Smart categorisation, routing and workflow optimisation
- 1,000+enterprise customers
Founded and scaled a multi-tenant SaaS
Built we.io from zero to 1,000+ enterprise customers across hospitality, retail, golf and B2B services on one multi-tenant architecture. Technology partially acquired in 2023.
Founder, CEO and CTO through to exit.
- 85%prediction accuracy
Predictive maintenance in production
Shipped a real-time inference pipeline on we.io serving 1,000+ concurrent deployments, cutting unplanned downtime for customers.
20% operational efficiency gain for customers.
- 3frameworks · designed in
Governance as architecture
Designed SOC2-aligned infrastructure meeting GDPR and EU AI Act requirements, with regular reporting to executive leadership, the Works Council and IT committees.
Stakeholder trust built into the operating rhythm.
What I bring
Four capabilities, proven at scale.
What a leadership team gets with me on it. Each one backed by work that shipped.
Leading leaders and building organisations
Built and led an 80-person product, engineering and innovation organisation across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. I hire for ownership, delegate real decisions, and build leadership teams that run without me.
Evidence
- 80 people across three countries
- Leadership team built and developed
- Works Council and C-level alignment
Product and platform ownership
From a multi-tenant SaaS built from zero to a unified cloud platform replacing legacy systems in three operating companies. Roadmap, architecture and business case owned together.
Evidence
- 1,000+ enterprise customers on one architecture
- Three countries, one cloud platform
- Dynamic pricing and demand forecasting enabled
Enterprise AI that survives audit
An LLM agent layer automating 93% of inbound customer interactions, shipped with a measured business case and a clear owner. Pilots that cannot show numbers in ninety days get stopped.
Evidence
- 93% automation in customer operations
- 85% prediction accuracy in predictive maintenance
- Measured against a business case, every time
Governance and operations as architecture
SOC2, GDPR and the EU AI Act designed in, not bolted on. Regular reporting to executive leadership, the Works Council and IT committees built into the operating rhythm.
Evidence
- SOC2, GDPR, EU AI Act delivered as architecture
- Board, Works Council and IT committee reporting
- Compliance designed in, not retrofitted
The detail behind each of these is a conversation away.
Across the verticals
Eleven industries, one playbook.
Twenty years across large enterprises and fast-scaling SaaS. The levers that compound business value rarely change shape.
- 01
Mobility and Parking
APCOA
- 02
Hospitality
hotelery by we.io
- 03
Retail and E-commerce
MediaMarkt · Sportcheck
- 04
Travel and Aviation
Lufthansa · TUI · Lastminute.com
- 05
Automotive
BMW · Mercedes-Benz
- 06
Telecommunications
Telefónica
- 07
HR Tech and Recruitment
CTG-Consulting
- 08
Sports and Leisure
Golf clubs via we.io
- 09
Gaming and Lottery
LottoBayern
- 10
Marketing and Advertising
Serviceplan · Virtual Identity · RedBlue
- 11
Financial Services and Comparison
CHECK24
As executive, founder, or lead on delivery.
The approach
Four principles that shape every decision.
Buy what is commodity. Build what differentiates.
Total cost of ownership over five years, not what is fashionable this quarter. Best-of-breed integration where good enough is good enough, custom engineering only where it wins customers.
Architecture follows the P&L.
Every platform decision is a business case first. If it does not move revenue, cost or risk in a way we can measure, it does not get built.
Governance designed in, not bolted on.
GDPR, SOC2 and the EU AI Act as architecture requirements from day one. Compliance that is designed in costs a fraction of compliance that is retrofitted.
Delegate decisions, not tasks.
An 80-person organisation only works if the leaders in it can run without you. I hire for ownership, hand over real decisions, and measure myself on how little I am needed.
Let's talk
Let's build something that compounds.
Based in Munich, working across Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the rest of Europe. German native, English business fluent.
Open to CTO, CPTO, CPO and COO roles. Until the right seat comes along, I take on selected interim mandates.