Alexander Kuester

Entrepreneurial co-creator shaping ECO STOR’s strategic roadmap by translating vision into execution across Strategy & Corporate Development, Business Model Development, M&A, and Asset Management. Enabling scalable growth in a rapidly evolving energy market.

We’re building the next generation of large-scale battery storage — unlocking flexibility for a 100% renewable future. With a fast-expanding portfolio, a 25+ GWh pipeline, and support from world-class investors, ECO STOR blends innovation, purpose, and engineering excellence to accelerate the energy transition in Germany.

👥 Executed managerial responsibility for >30 FTE from 18 nationalities (operations, training, administration, account and service management, business development support). 🤝 Coached and mentored team leads and high potentials to foster their professional growth and leadership abilities, positively impacting employee satisfaction and retention. 🎯 Collaborated with external stakeholders and the supervisory board to strategically design a workforce and service portfolio that addresses legal obligations and meets client needs. 🌐 Supervised 24/7/365 service delivery to 15 clients from 12 European countries in the transmission sector (grid model merging, security assessment, capacity calculation, outage planning, adequacy assessment, virtual control centre video-conferencing). 🛡️ Guided business continuity and crisis management strategies to fortify the organisation's resilience and adaptability throughout the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Ensured uninterrupted service delivery to customers. 📊 Implemented a centralised data management and visualisation platform for the control centre, enhancing data accessibility and showcasing business insights. 📈 Established data and service quality management (incl. business intelligence, management dashboards and automated KPI reporting solutions) to increase service quality and visibility to internal and external stakeholders and vastly increase operational efficiency. 💼 Negotiated annual contract prolongations (21M EUR) and led the technical integration of four new clients onto the service platform. 🤝 Realised new client engagement formats and implemented a customer survey across 12 countries, increasing client satisfaction and reducing time to market for service improvements.

🚀 Delivered a new office and control room IT architecture, incl. new client devices and central device management (risk assessment, vendor selection and migration), which led to increased information security, resilience in service delivery and improved scalability for future services. 🤝 Streamlined the IT supplier contracts to ensure legal compliance, double-digit cost reduction and maximised value for the organisation.

🏢 Coordinated business development activities for various software products, including client alignment, delivery and approval of product specifications and vendor consultation. 📑 Executed go-live preparations with internal stakeholders and clients to realise a successful launch and service delivery. 🌐 Developed SOPs cooperating with client representatives and trained operational staff to establish best practices and high service quality.

His work has been dedicated to optimizing network operations and fostering innovation in the energy sector, including the following initiatives: 🚀 Developed and successfully deployed new Ancillary Service market products leading to higher liquidity and overall cost reduction for Ancillary Service Procurement. 🤝 Acting as company-wide SPOC for Smart Grids, establishing a network to potential VPP and Demand-Side-Management clients (BFE Task-Force Lead DACH region). 📈 Successfully developed and deployed an automated decision support tool in the National Control Centre that led to improved operational efficiency and cost savings for Redispatch activation. 🌐 Company rep in various workgroups contributing to the improvement of Cross-Border Congestion Management, Capacity Calculation, and Redispatch procedures that lead to improved operational efficiency. 🎯 Developed and successfully deployed a KPI to measure Security of Supply as part of the company-wide BSC that led to increased transparency and awareness of key business performance aspects.

With approximately 300 million people sick and over 5 million dead, the world has experienced a humanitarian and economic shock not been experienced since the 1918 Spanish influenza and more severe than the financial crisis of 2008. The global pandemic forced many businesses to embrace digital transformation and digitalization as their strategic focus aiming to fundamentally change their existing value chains and business operations. Leaders are taking a role as digital ambassadors within their organization and thus require not only the digital skill set but excellent communication skills to lead their teams effectively via technology-mediated communication. This qualitative study conducted semi-structured interviews with leaders and followers to gain insights from their experience with virtual and hybrid teams to ultimately answer the research question: What are the challenges for leaders of virtual teams and their followers?