Stephan Zilker,
Chief Operating Officer PB, Bank Credit Suisse (Moscow):

"Based on a one year contract (June 2011 - May 2012), Thomas Wähling took over the overall responsibility as Manager of our Russian Onshore Growth Program in Moscow, which consisted of four projects  (Custody Solution, Lombard Lending Offering, Client Reporting Solution, introduction of Structured Products). Next to his Program Management, program budget planning and control, as well as stakeholder management activities, Thomas very actively coached the individual project managers and was very operationally involved in some of the individual projects. Also, Thomas completely redesigned the vendor management regarding the Custody project: In order to actively involve and control the vendor from end to end, Thomas introduced and successfully negotiated a contractually agreed KPI system with a key vendor, linking the relevant indicators to control and penalty mechanisms, as well as actively intervening within vendor-internal production and quality assurance processes. Thomas led the negotiations with the vendor, and next to introducing the above changes, obtained a material discount from the external vendor for the services provided.

Thomas Wähling successfully managed the program in a very structured and analytical manner, clearly improving the program performance. Thomas possesses excellent conceptual, business and project management skills, as well as a profound understanding of implementing business requirements within IT solutions. His very fast mental grasp and target-oriented management, combined with very good language skills (among others, the program requiring to lead meetings, negotiations with external vendors, as well as to perform a detailed quality assurance of technical documents (system requirements specifications) in Russian language) helped him to substantially refocus and successfully lead the program."