Born 1978 in Krefeld Dirk Oedekoven studied business administration and mechanical engineering at TU Darmstadt. He started his professional career as a consultant at FIR GmbH in Aachen and focused on international projects in supply chain and production management. Along the way he received a doctor’s degree under Prof. Günther Schuhs supervision at RWTH Aachen University (topic: value of master data for business processes).
In 2011 he joined SMS Group, the leading plant supplier to the metallurgical industry and became responsible for the companies Technical Service operations in Europe in 2014. His attention focused on developing the core business services such as spare parts and logistics, maintenance and repairs, upgrades and modernization as well as consulting and training. After executing a merger, a cost cutting program and a growth initiative he took a new challenge in 2018 and moved to Shanghai. Here he took charge of SMS groups Chinese manufacturing base.
Having gained operational expertise in various areas and always been involved in strategic digitalization projects in 2018 the management board entrusted him the global responsibility for IT, process and quality management of SMS group.
As a Senior Vice President for Information and Quality Management today he is asked to drive the digital transformation of SMS group.
His responsibility ranges from basic infrastructural services such as data centers, servers, networks or communication up to global application management for solutions such as office, CAD and of course the ERP landscape.
Furthermore help desk, field service and licensing are as well covered by his organization as IT security, master data management, system integration and engineering services.
Finally his unit takes care of the groups process and quality management and manages the portfolio of strategic projects.
What is the pop in your job? Humans thinking.
What drives you? Opportunities of Digitalization.
What is your passion? Finding finally solutions for persistent challenges.