First change in the VSHN management, André and Marco

As announced in this blog post we’re changing our corporate governance. A first step is that André Keller leaves the management and Marco Fretz joins with a strong focus on organizational development and daily operations. This change happens on request of André because he decided to shift the focus back to technical work and day-to-day customer service management and resign from his management role. Here is why:
When VSHN was founded back in 2014 the first management of VSHN was assembled. VSHN always followed a role concept, this includes the members of the management. This means that being a member of the management is not considered a full-time job (yet) but an additional role. Members of the management work primarily in System Engineering, Finance, Sales or Project- and Product management.
With VSHN rapidly growing over the last years, certain roles became more and more effort and mental load for VSHNeers – especially the management member role. This made it harder for VSHNeers to concentrate on their daily job – which in case of André was always being a System Engineer and taking care of customer needs in projects and daily business.

“In fall 2018, the management team went to Malta for a week-long retreat, where we focused on the challenges that came with our growth as well as the company strategy for the upcoming years. Among other topics, part of these discussions were the individual goals of the members of the management. This was when I first started to really think about my own role in the company and what the things are that I enjoy doing and I find interesting and what aspects of the job I would rather do without. As you can imagine this is not something that is easily figured out in a few hours. At least for me it was a process lasting several months.
At the end of this process I started to realize that it is not my ambition to be part of the management, I would rather concentrate on the day-to-day business, working on projects together with our customers and partners.”
– André

“One of the things I love about VSHN is the fact that everyone has the chance to evolve beyond the current job description, that you can take new roles and resign from roles you don’t like anymore.”
– Marco

The new board and management structure will have a strong focus on people, organizational development (OrgDev) and the refining of the strategy set by the board. André is happy to handover his position in the management to Marco Fretz who has been supporting the management in an advisory capacity for some time. Marco started early 2016 as a system engineer at VSHN. From the beginning he became more and more interested in organizational topics far beyond his daily job and contributed with constructive ideas and concepts to the success of VSHN.

“Being an “old” VSHNeer, knowing all the good and bad stories and having an open mind I’m sure I can be a driver for the changes VSHN needs to overcome future challenges. Together, we can improve things for us as VSHNeers and our customers likewise – and maintain our great family-like culture we value that much.
I know André long before VSHN and I’m convinced this decision is the right one for both André and me. We all should focus on where our ambitions are to be successful and happy – privately and in our job.”
– Marco