ExecBridge · Swiss Quality · Selectively Available · May 2026
Norbert Völkle
Norbert Völkle
Bridging Business & Technology · Senior & Personal · Fixed Price · Regulated Environments
Most transformations fail in the middle. Not strategy. Not technology. The gap between boardroom and team room. That gap is what I bridge. Personally. At senior level. Fixed price.
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Why ExecBridge
A senior person who bridges business and technology. Brings people along. Delivers — personally, at a fixed price, with no junior team.
Business strategy and technical delivery. Thirty years at the intersection. Credible with the CFO. Credible with the engineers. That combination is rare. It is where transformation either happens — or doesn't.
Frameworks don't change organisations. People do. Planning days, creativity sessions, board coaching, retrospectives. Getting teams to want to work differently. Making it stick after the engagement ends. That is the work.
You engage with me. I do the work. No junior team. No rotating consultants. No institutional agenda. Thirty years of seniority — applied directly. What I commit to, I deliver.
One price. Agreed before work begins. Payment tied to deliverables — not time spent. If a milestone isn't met, it isn't invoiced. The risk sits with me. Not with you.
Swiss Tier-1 banks. Global exchanges. Payment infrastructure. Federal registries. Environments where failure is not an option. Thirty years operating there. Delivering there.
A separate, confidential track. HNWI individuals, family principals, senior executives. Technology strategy, AI adoption, leadership transitions. Complete discretion. Accepted by personal introduction only.
Track Record
Regulated finance, exchange technology, federal infrastructure, private advisory. The context changes. The challenge doesn't. Bridge the gap. Make it stick. Deliver.
Among the most rewarding and enduring mandates have been those with high-net-worth individuals, family principals, and senior executives navigating significant personal and professional transitions. Technology strategy, AI adoption, investment decisions, and leadership challenges — handled with complete discretion across Switzerland, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
Clients gain a trusted, senior thinking partner with no institutional agenda — someone who tells them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. All engagements strictly confidential and accepted by personal introduction only.
Clients also find that the most useful conversations often happen sideways — across disciplines, over coffee, at the intersection of economics, technology, history, and human judgment. That breadth is deliberate.
Delivered via Zühlke Engineering AG. The insurance company's name cannot be disclosed. One of Switzerland's oldest and most established insurance companies — among the first in the country to adopt SAFe at scale — needed independent certification that its agile transformation was legally and operationally sound.
The insurer gained a clean internal audit attestation: agile teams, release trains, CI/CD toolchain, and governance all certified as compliant with CIA standards and Swiss regulatory requirements. Board-level confidence, risk removed.
Zühlke's migration to a new enterprise CRM required someone to own the entire transformation — from stakeholder alignment and supplier management to security architecture, KPIs, and marketing automation. Equally important was making the organisation want the new system: working sessions with users across levels, creativity workshops to define what the CRM should actually do for them, and a clean handover to a permanent successor who had been coached to own it.
A fully operational CRM delivered with governance, consent management, and LinkedIn automation. The successor inherited a running system, not a project — and has owned it successfully since 2024.
Zühlke — market leader in Switzerland with operations across the EU, UK, Singapore, and beyond — needed to deepen and systematise its global partner ecosystem across hyperscalers, market segment partners, and practice partners.
A structured global partnership strategy delivered for banking and insurance, new joint-offer frameworks established, and lean-agile methodology introduced at corporate strategy level. A permanent successor was enabled to carry the work forward — another engagement that outlasted the mandate.
Tier-1 Swiss banks and insurers gained clarity on their FinTech roadmap, a CRM that actually serves their advisors, and agile teams that deliver — not just plan.
Wealth management optimised, private banking UX transformed, SAFe scaled across multiple institutions.
Europe's 2nd-largest stock exchange migrated to a new trading platform with zero interruption to live trading — on deadline, coordinating teams across Stuttgart, Stockholm, and New York.
One of the largest exchange migration projects in Europe in 2015. Trading continuity guaranteed throughout.
A major payment company needed to reach PCI-DSS gold standard without disrupting live card operations for millions of cardholders. The technical challenge was significant. The human one was greater — bringing together POs, PMs, team members, and board-level stakeholders into a shared understanding of why agile ways of working were worth the disruption. Planning days, creativity sessions, and individual coaching ran alongside the technical delivery.
95% fewer vulnerabilities. 12 agile teams scaled. 200+ leaders trained. ApplePay, tokenization, Open Banking live. And an organisation that understood why — not just what.
Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Monaco gained a stable, secure, multilingual environmental certificate registry — with security reporting delivered to the United Nations, New York.
A complex international multi-jurisdiction system delivered and maintained across three countries and three languages.
How I Work & Pricing
Most consultants bill by the day and you carry the risk. I work differently — every engagement is structured as a fixed-price contract for a defined deliverable. You know what you are paying before work begins.
A focused 2–4 week deep-dive into your current state. Delivers a clear picture of gaps, risks, and opportunities — with a prioritised action plan. Fixed price, fixed scope.
A functional, demonstrable prototype of your target solution. Validates the concept before full investment. Typical duration 4–8 weeks. Fixed price per deliverable.
Proves your solution works in your environment — with your data, your systems, your constraints. The foundation for a business case and board approval.
A production-ready first release that delivers immediate business value. Real users. Real data. Real outcomes. Priced as a complete deliverable, not a time estimate.
End-to-end delivery of a complex transformation — structured as a series of defined milestones, each with its own fixed price and acceptance criteria.
Pricing
All engagements are priced on a fixed-price per milestone basis. Pricing is agreed during the initial scoping conversation and depends on scope, complexity, and duration. Contact me to discuss your specific situation.
Where the Bridge Has Been Built
Work Experience
2024 – Today · Zürich
Independent Consultant — AI Strategy & Enablement
Freelance · HNWI & Executive Coaching (confidential) · Oxford AI Programme (completed 2025)
2025 – 2026 · Zürich
Senior Advisory Engagement
Confidential mandate — details on request
2021 – 2024 · Schlieren
Principal Consultant (FinTech · Wealth · Agile)
Zühlke Engineering AG
2020 – 2021 · Zürich / Zug
Transformation Manager & Business Analyst
Pragmatica AG
2018 – 2020 · Horgen
Product Manager SAFe · DevOps Coach · System Architect
Swisscard AECS GmbH (AMEX · Credit Suisse)
2016 – 2017 · Nidau / Biel-Bienne
Transformation & Release Manager · DevOps Coach
Quickline AG
2014 – 2015 · Stuttgart
Transformation Manager · Release Manager (Migration)
Börse Stuttgart AG
2010 – 2014 · Zürich
IT Consultant · Architect · Sales Engineer
adesso Schweiz AG
Incl. Product & Project Manager for the Swiss federal environmental certificate registry (BAFU / Bern), serving Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Monaco.
2007 – 2010 · Sursee
System Architect · Integration Lead · Project Manager
Bison Schweiz AG
Education & Certifications
2025
2023
Information Security — Zühlke
2022
SAFe SPC — Scaled Agile Program Consultant
2022
DevOps Practitioner
2022
IREB CPRE-FL — Requirements Engineering
2022
CPUX-UX Foundation Level
2022
BPMN 2.0 — Business Process Modelling
2001
IT Engineer — TFH Berlin
1996
Diplom-Volkswirt — TU Berlin
Get in Touch
Every engagement begins with a no-commitment scoping conversation. Tell me what you are trying to achieve — I will tell you honestly whether I can help and what it would cost.
Swiss-based, available worldwide. Engagements in German, English, or French. Private client and HNWI advisory accepted by personal introduction — handled with complete discretion.
Prefer to talk? Pick a time that suits you — no obligation.
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