The AI expert is considered a gifted networker.
(Photo: Marc-Steffen Unger for Handelsblatt)
new York The former Wirecard controller Anastassia Lauterbach will be European head of the New York management consultancy Exco. In the coming years Lauterbach is to win European customers for the advisory service that has hitherto been active primarily in the USA, especially in Germany and Great Britain, as the Handelsblatt has learned in advance.
Lauterbach makes no secret of her former position: “I am very actively addressing the fact that I was on the board of Wirecard,” she says. “Wirecard was a traumatic experience, but it is an experience.”
Lauterbach is considered a technology expert, the 49-year-old multi-supervisory board member has already advised numerous companies. Today she is best known for her mandate with the payment service provider from Aschheim near Munich. Lauterbach should expand compliance at Wirecard, i.e. adherence to rules and laws. In 2020, the group collapsed in the course of a billion-dollar accounting scandal.
Lauterbach does not want to comment on details of her mandate in Aschheim with reference to confidentiality obligations. Just this much: “Wirecard allows me to draw many technical conclusions. Do I wish this experience to someone else? Under no circumstance. But I can pass on my wealth of experience anonymously. “
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How could managers protect their values, such as personal health, even in difficult phases? How should professional supervision be designed within a company? Lauterbach emphasizes all questions that Wirecard experience can help with.
Focus on digital transformation
Exco was founded in 2010 under the name Merryck & Co and prefers to advise top managers, including board members and supervisory boards, in group and individual coaching on the development of their personal skills. Exco consultants must have at least 15 years of professional experience at the top of companies.
Around 60 active consultants, known as “mentors”, including six from Europe so far, currently advise around 700 customers, according to the company. The advisory group includes the ex-CEO of Northrop Grumman, Ron Sugar, the ex-CFO of Coca-Cola, Kathy Waller, and other top managers from industrial giants such as BP, Novartis and McDonald’s. Customers include Microsoft, IBM and Pfizer.
Lauterbach wants to support Excos European customers especially in digitization. “There is a lack of digital growth stories in Europe. That’s why a scandal like Wirecard is particularly painful,” she says. “The digital transformation, the positioning between the USA and China are fundamental leadership topics. We will drive this forward. “
The IT expert was born in Russia and has worked for Munich Re, Deutsche Telekom and Qualcomm, among others. She resigned her supervisory board mandate at the British airline Easyjet at the end of 2020 after criticism from the voting rights advisor ISS because of her role at Wirecard.
Lauterbach moved into the supervisory board of the group dominated by CEO Markus Braun in May 2018. As a result of critical inquiries, she quickly clashed with the long-time chief inspector and Braun’s intimate partner Wulf Matthias, who is currently being investigated on suspicion of aiding and abetting infidelity. Your relationship with the last chairman of the supervisory board, Thomas Eichelmann, who helped initiate the special audit that ultimately led to the discovery of the billion-dollar fraud, was considered to be strained.
Shortly after joining the supervisory board, Lauterbach advocated the establishment of a risk and compliance committee. However, this could not prevent the billion-dollar fraud and the downfall in June 2020.
More: The Wirecard file: All the background to the scandal