Research built into every decision. Accountable today for the customer experience behind €400M GMV at Conrad Electronic, across seven product teams.
Based in Munich. German and Italian native, English business proficient.
Retail, travel, insurance, HR tech, comparison and media, mostly mid-transformation.
Employers, 2006 to today
Conrad Electronic
German technology retailer serving businesses and consumers across Europe, from components and measurement equipment to factory automation. Trading since 1923.
conrad.deFTI Group
Europe's third largest tour operator, more than 11,000 employees across over 90 subsidiaries. Filed for insolvency in June 2024.
Smart InsurTech
Operates SMART INSUR, the platform connecting insurers, brokers and distributors in the German insurance market.
smartinsurtech.deExperteer
Munich career marketplace for senior and executive roles, connecting headhunters and recruiters with pre-selected candidates.
experteer.deCHECK24
Germany's largest comparison portal, covering insurance, energy, finance, telecoms and travel.
check24.deCHIP Digital
Consumer technology publisher and one of Germany's largest tech media brands, with 23 million monthly active users at the time.
chip.deConsulting clients through N+
DevelopX
Start-up builder that helps companies build, transform and scale digital business models from idea to market rollout. Part of TruVenturo.
developx.com/deIMERO
Checks and translates food and cosmetics labels for global markets, pairing AI with expert validation of declaration compliance.
imero.ioRyd
Connected car service for paying at the fuel pump from a phone, available across Europe.
fleet.ryd.one/privatkundenVEOMO
Independent mobility consultancy that plans and runs mobility concepts for real estate, cities and companies.
veomo.comRankscale
AI visibility platform. Monitors and improves how brands appear across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.
rankscale.aiThe same four in every company I have built in.
How a company decides, and how it finds out. The change is agreed above the teams before anyone is asked to work differently, every role gets a scope and an accountability on paper, goals stay readable by the teams not in the room, and nothing enters a backlog without evidence. This is what turns the other three into how the company works.
Research is infrastructure before it is a headcount. A panel, a repository and a recruitment path go in first, so a study becomes a two-day question and the small questions get asked at all. Then the teams are taught to run their own, because a function smaller than the company it serves cannot work by taking requests.
A component layer is an organizational commitment before it is a technical one. The case comes first, in the currency the business already uses, and the system is funded as a product with a team, a backlog and a number it has to show. Who owns it and who may change it is written down before the first token.
Evidence is worth what it changes. Each initiative starts from a written problem and a hypothesis somebody can open, moves through prototypes built on the system, and ships behind a test, so what comes back is a number. The craft standard is set in critique, argued in front of the people who ship it.
Operating model
Prioritization and goal frameworks, written accountabilities, the Product Trio and OKRs tracked in the open. The operating model built at FTI Group for a company of more than 11,000 employees, and again at Conrad Electronic across seven product teams.
Product discovery
Research operations built three times. At Conrad Electronic a participant panel grew from 200 people to more than 7,000 in two years, with 300+ interviews through a company-wide repository. At FTI Group the same infrastructure went in from nothing, ahead of a team that grew to eleven.
Design system
Two design systems built in two organizations, each funded before a token was named. The sequence that worked both times: make the case in the currency the business already uses, fund it as a product, pilot it, and write the governance down.
Product design
Ten research-led initiatives at Conrad Electronic in 2025, carrying €30.3M of EU revenue impact in their first twelve months, nine of them validated in A/B tests. Before that, FTI Group's homepage and comparison page rebuilt on the design system and launched at a 9 percent higher click-through rate.
Quoted verbatim from my public LinkedIn profile, with each writer's title at the time of writing.
Nico was my first key hire when taking over as Chief Growth Officer at FTI Group where he proceeded to build out the entire UX and User Research function from scratch (up to becoming a strong 11 member team). […] In short, I can only recommend Nico as a core part to your Product and UX setup and would love to team up with him again.
Chris Nill Chief Growth Officer, FTI Group Nico knows how to successfully build, transform and develop user-centric product organizations. With his keen eye for the success factors of digital product development and his authentic and entrepreneurial leadership, he is a guarantee for sustainable, value-adding product development in the company. I look forward to the next opportunity to work with him.
Ole Breulmann Executive Board Member, Smart InsurTech AG I can highly recommend Nico! His creativity and wealth of ideas coupled with his very professional use of UX/UI tools and methods help take online products to a whole new level! In the time we worked together at CHECK24, I haven't seen anything remotely comparable.
Dr. Armin Hoell-Steier Chief Executive Officer, CHECK24