Christoph Stettina sets out to grow BlinkLane’s agile offerings

At the start of this year, Christoph Stettina – a thought leader on agile – joined BlinkLane Consulting as Transformation Lead. With fifteen years of experience under his belt, much of which been at the forefront of agile, he has set out to build a market-leading practice in the Netherlands and beyond.

Having started his career in Germany at Nokia, Stettina moved to the Netherlands to join Leiden University as a project officer and research associate at the Center for Technology and Innovation Management. Fast forward a decade, and he is now an Assistant Professor at the university, and the founding father of its ‘Agile for Excellence’ initiative. 

Emerged out of the world of software at the turn of the century, agile is nowadays one of the most applied methodologies in business. The framework helps teams to deliver incremental results through a more iterative and collaborative approach (called ‘sprints’), enabling faster and more user-centric delivery of results.

According to one estimate, almost all organisations in the Netherlands with a strong strategic IT capability have adopted agile, with many more domains in and outside of IT set to follow suit.

Over the past decade of advising organisations on business agility, from the adoption of agile ways of working to scaling-up and enterprise agile, Stettina has seen first-hand the impact the methodology can bring to the bottom-line, as well as employee satisfaction. Meanwhile, his work on the topic (and adjacent domains) has been published in more than 30 academic and professional magazines and books, granting him authority in the field.

On the relevance of agile, Settina said, “I truly believe that in order to lead in the next wave of digitalisation, organisations will need to become much more effective and efficient in order to remain relevant. This is where agile comes in – its framework can guide organisations in their journey to becoming more customer-centric, efficient and innovative.”

“Agile has inspired me ever since the first day I worked with agile teams,” he continued, recalling his time in the Nordics. 

Now at BlinkLane Consulting, he has found the best of both worlds: an ambition to build the “leading consultancy in the domain of business agility in North West Europe” and a place that “really feels like home.” On the latter, he said, “I love the culture at BlinkLane, the family-like atmosphere, collaboration and the entrepreneurial environment. It gives me a lot of energy!” 

Propelled in its ambitions through a recent private equity injection, BlinkLane Consulting is a specialist in the delivery of complex business and IT transformations. The firm’s agile offering – which is backed by its training arm Gladwell Academy – has cemented a head start in the market, and Settina has now been tasked with expanding its footprint.

He will aim to replicate the success at Accenture, where he played a large role in building the firm’s agile capability over the past years. “It has been a great journey to build up the platform, and after it stood on its own feed I felt it was a good time for a new challenge. I am delighted to be on board with BlinkLane Consulting.”