Interview with Christoph Spanner, Project Manager at Projective
Half a year into his new role at Projective, a consultancy focused on the financial services sector, Christoph Spanner reflects on his move, his first months in the role, Projective’s entrepreneurial spirit and his first engagement.
Christoph Spanner started out at Projective’s London office in April 2016. Having already gained a number of years of experience in the IT and financial industry in Switzerland and London, he found himself moving quickly up the ranks. When he decided he wanted to take the next step as a project manager, the move came easily: “Projective combines the best of two worlds: the complexity of the financial industry and their strong entrepreneurial spirit of getting things done. This is quite unique and the perfect combination for me.”
Born in a small town near Munich, he first became interested in IT doing web development as a teenager, and shortly thereafter took up a university place in Business Information Systems. As a student in Germany, Chris was already intrigued by project management. After he wrote his thesis on agile project management at the Swiss Fintech company Quartal Financial Solutions, he was brought on full time, and worked there until he moved to Credit Suisse. His work took him from Zurich to London. After two years in London he decided it was time for a new challenge. That’s where Projective came in. “Projective’s structure and culture are very unique and different from other consulting firms in the financial industry. There is no classical hierarchy, no promotions or chasing titles, only the client delivery which counts. That creates a totally different dynamic: bouncing ideas off each other or bringing up new ones; no problem at all. Colleagues help each other out and best of all, there are no internal corporate politics. There’s basically nothing or nobody holding you back from achieving your goals. For me this was an important factor when I decided to join Projective.”
Chris’s start at Projective was different from what he expected. Aware that it normally takes a little time between putting the CV forward and taking up the first project, he registered for an external training to become a Scaled Agile Program Consultant. “Besides lots of internal trainings, at Projective every employee gets a training budget which we can use for external trainings. I decided I wanted to get certified as an agile ambassador. It was something that had been on my bucket list for a long time. So in my second week, because I wasn’t assigned to a client yet, I asked if this was possible and they were happy to agree. I can’t imagine that happening at another company. I still benefit from those four days of training and I’m now working on passing this knowledge on within the company.”
During the same time he also became quite active with the internal activities of hiring and marketing. At Projective, typical departments like marketing HR or business development don’t exist, so these are tasks that everyone takes on together. Because of this structure, he developed a particular interested in the hiring process and remained involved even after he started working on the client side.
Chris looks forward to his future at Projective: “I am now working on my first project back in the FinTech industry again, and it’s very exciting. At Projective, I feel like I’m in the perfect place to gain experience, get involved in more complex programs, and focus 100% on my passion for delivering projects. As Projective has ambitious growth plans, it’s exciting to be a part of that and see how the company evolves day by day.”
Earlier this year Projective’s CEO Stefan Dierckx unveiled, on the back of a capital investment from German Wincor Nixdorf, an ambitious growth track for the coming years. To support its recruitment drive, the financial services consultant recently launched a separate career site.
