Dr. Lars Janzik
Passion for Innovation & Transformation
- Born April
- Grown Up Rheingau Area
- Languages German, English, some French is left
- Wine Makers Francis Ford Coppola, Cantine San Marzano
- Sound Ibiza Global Radio
- Movie Once Upon a Time in America
- Berlin
Innovation is a passion. And you can get addicted to it. But it is a positive addiction.
When you think about a certain business, a company or a product….you should always ask yourself what is next? How can I create additional value for my customers or user? In the online world you can think every day about new things. It is really difficult to focus on what is important to change, especially if the business is running good. That is the best time to think about innovation. And you should every day ask yourself “what can we do better”. But most important is to ask the user or customer. This should be the center of any innovation….
Professional Skills
Work Experience
As part of the Klett Group, I will now support the Pons Langenscheidt team (for the brands Pons, Langenscheidt and Klett Lerntraining) with all my strength and passion.
Supporting the GruenderGeist team in a different role.
Building a company from scratch with a b2b "platform as a service" model • MVP developed with small internal team • signing and implementation of +30 partner suppliers with approx. 100.000 products and services • MVP as stand alone platform launched after 8 month • first PaaS customer signed after 6 month, partner platform launched after 10 month • first revenues after 10 month • team of 13 employees in year one
Responsible for complete P&L of Vertical Media GmbH / Gruenderszene (part of Axel Springer SE) • business models: online advertising, events/webinars, online career services/jobboard, content marketing, membership/freemium model, print premium products • 60 employees • sustainable transformation of organization, product portfolio and business models
Responsible for digital product strategy of WELT and N24 (Axel Springer SE) • leading teams for website and apps including UX, SEO and A/B testing • user centric conception and realization of new web destination and apps for WELT • online advertising revenues • research, development and implementation of new business segments such as WELT travel and a brand studio unit • member of the management team
Leading Product Management • effectively managing the product portfolio & online platform in central Europe within B2B and B2C, incl. job board, database, community network, apps, mobile products, cloud service • developing new regional products from conception to realization in co-operation with sales teams and customers (e.g. whitelabel solutions) • user centric realization of products & projection with internal and external agile teams • member of the Senior Management Team
Founding and managing two vertical business units (1: B2C online community, ticket eCommece shop; 2: utility software) • managing a 25 person team with global and P&L responsibility • successfully utilised technical expertise to licence all new and supporting technology
Effectively managed the global product portfolio including market release and development for 15 core software/game titles and four cloud services • inventing user centric product development, customer integration & research • effectively managed strategic B2B projects for Aldi, Swiss-Com and T-Com • co-ordinated the planning for products and releases in 25 countries in 18 languages
Managed and extended the global product portfolio (from 2 software products to 15) • successfully built, expanded and managed teams for product management, marketing, PR, communication, editorial and events • successfully expanded the eCommerce shop and introduced Magix cloud services
Product Manager / Managing Director
Berlin
Managing the music marketing agency BLJ-Music / Loewe Songs Publishing • development of new product and marketing concepts • consulting for clients, direction and coordination of media ad production (e.g. Axel Springer, Disney, Hasbro)
Foundation of a new record label (Solid Music Zone, SMZ Records) including business plan, marketing strategy, cooperation with sponsors and distribution partners
Education
Mindset
User First
User Centric Development
I worked with many very creative teams in the last twenty years. And there was no day without any new idea. The fantastic thing about new ideas in the digital world is: you can test it! The user can decide himself if there is a great value for him behind an idea (that might be great). The user is the center of any product development.
The Team is the Star
Cross-Functional
Some years ago I can remember there was always a fight between departments: fight for resources, for responsibilities and for dependencies as well as discussions about “who’s fault is it”. Cross-functionality is a great opportunity to focus on common goals, to share responsibilities and to get a commitment from each involved individual.
People Culture
Never stop Changing
Any change is starting with people and mindsets. You cannot transform a product into something new if the responsible team is not supporting the idea of change. And this is not related to product management or development teams only. "Agile" (=new work) principles make sense in any part of the company and as more people support this as better it will work. And of course the so-called top management must support it too!
25 Years Product Passion
Continuous Delivery
It is great fun to work with digital products. Thinking about offline software product cycles in the late 90s is still making me crazy. We worked a year for a new release and half a year to fix all the bugs. To get valid feedback from users was a long painful process. Today digital products are created in real time, increments are continuously delivered and requirements need to be re-prioritized frequently. But the passion for products remains.
Online is Mobile
Rethinking Product Design
Mobile devices are the main access point to the Internet. Sure, there are still use cases that are difficult to handle via a smartphone. But the classification boundaries between smartphones, tablets and notebooks are disappearing. Websites, content and business models must necessarily work in the "mobile world" as well. Especially as we work on the go, from home or from anywhere in the world....yes and sometimes in the office.
Trust & Empowerment
Modern Leadership
Trust is the key for success. You need to build trust from the management in the workforce, trust from the employees in the management and the organization’s vision. Trust is also the premise to empower teams to make responsible decisions. The top management is taking the role of frame keepers and frame expanders.
Work & Research
Some Interests
- Cooking
- Fitness
- Fashion
- Diving
- Music
- Wine Tasting
- Music Production