Simon Ulrich

“Simon is a great manager. Empowering, focused, detail-oriented, and most of all, encouraging. Furthermore, he is eager to hear from others and always appreciates and promotes solid ideas. Simon is also one of the most innovative thinkers I've met, who creates an exciting and inventive atmosphere in which to work.”

“Simon came across as a person who is not only visionary and ambitious but a person full of characters, passionate about his vision, values, his winning team, culture, and society. He is a person who leads with Integrity, transparency, and commitment to the goal which is creating business values and driving innovation. Always challenge a status quo and embrace a new challenge with optimism and focus. ”

“Simon is truly a dynamic leader with a revolutionary mindset in the data science and blockchain space. His ability to bring clarity to complex problems as well as leading the whole team in accomplishing big challenges is simply remarkable. His passion of making the world a better place by inclusiveness fuelled by love and transparency is what I admire most. Working with Simon has been a real privilege as he takes a lot of effort to invest in your personal growth and he is outmost dedicated to see you reach your full potential!”

“I worked with Simon as part of different groups. He was a senior leader in the organization I belonged to. During this time, Simon has always taken the time to answer my questions and mentor me even though I did not report to him. I appreciate him always taking the time for me which I think is a great example of his people focus. Simon is an influential leader who can always bring a fresh perspective to challenges. I always walked away from our conversations with insight and fresh ideas. I find him to be a leader who can find this ever evasive balance between innovation and realities. I've always been impressed with how his teams performs and I think this is due to his leadership style which enables them to challenge the status quo. On the personal side of things, Simon is very easy to approach and bounce ideas with. I believe this is very rare for a senior leader of his caliber. ”

“Simon is an intelligent, driven leader with an eye on transformation. I have worked with him for several years and seen him create, grow and deliver value from major initiatives such as Big Data, Advanced Analytics and building out our IT Solution Center. ”

“Based on my 7+ years of experience in working with Simon in various organizational setups, I can clearly say that he is an extraordinarily effective leader passionate about driving business value through both productivity and innovation. For instance, I was impressed how quickly Simon transformed a classical corporate Business Intelligence area into highly efficient and valuable organizational asset delivering enterprise wide advanced analytics, data-science, AI and machine learning capabilities. All of that under a strong cost pressure. I find Simon as very ambitious strategic thinker with great analytical skills. On an operational level he has a perfect blend of technical and business knowledge. Combining all of that with his excellent communication and storytelling skills makes him a great partner in business. ”

“Simon and I have been a peer on the same LT team for the past seven years. Simon has build a growing BI team that has been successful in delivering business value in a continuous manner. Simon is a leader that is not afraid to challenge the status quo, challenge his team to continue to grow and build new capabilities. He and his team have as example created a big data platform at Roche, enabled in-Memory analytics, established a data science lab and won several innovation awards. Simon is able to increase IT Productivity and Cost Saving, drive innovation to create business value. He is doing this by setting a ambitious vision and strategy, leads with integrity and shows a passion for his team and business outcome. ”

“Simon I have have been peer LT members over several years. I would like to recognize Simon for his energy and drive. He has sharp analytical skills and a strategic mindset which he uses to increases IT Productivity and drive Cost Savings. In addition, Simon has a strong focus on innovation and always look for opportunities to create added business value and question status quo. Together with a strong focus on his team and continued development, he has a proven track record of expanding his team into new areas driving business value. ”

“I worked with Simon for last few years. From the very beginning he was communicating his long term vision around BI&MDM Team @Roche. I was encouraged to shape my environment in a way that helped organization focus on optimization and productivity. He drove a project of Big Data implementation, which opened multiple opportunities for business projects implementation for a long time. Thanks to our long term engagement, as a team we were able to design and implement multiple innovative experiments that helped do deliver novel business outcomes. I appreciate Simon honesty and transparency, but what most important, strive for excellent results every day even if it means challenging status quo.”

“I had the pleasure to work with Simon as a peer in the Application Services Leadership team for almost 6 years. From day one I got to know him as an extraordinarily driven, visionary and strategic leader. Over time I got to appreciate his high level of integrity, compassion and openness. With Simon you always know where you stand and you can be 100 % sure that words will be followed by actions. It was always a pleasure to team up on our shared leadership team goals & ambitions. He consistently succeeded, when being given "impossible" challenges. For example: Early 2012 he was handed a partly disassembled organization in a highly contested space. He turned the team around, delivered on our (very aggressive) saving targets while still creating the space to build new value add services and establishing a brand new team in China. Further I see Simon as one of the few true corporate entrepreneurs out there. He was never satisfied with the status quo and hence became one of the main sponsors and drivers of creating a more innovative culture. I was impressed by the sheer volume of business innovation coming out of his team by year 2 of him being in charge. Seeing his team winning 2 out of 3 CIO Innovation awards was not really a surprise to me. He also is not afraid to take personal risk and go the extra mile for the team & the organization. I found it courageous when he moved his family with 4 weeks notice to Kuala Lumpur, to take a second job on top, so that he could prove to the leadership team that a shared service center in Malaysia is possible and has a great business case. In summary I am confident that Simon will excel in any senior leadership role he will take up and can warmly recommend him to any team. ”

“Few people have the opportunity to work with a Head of Department that would make time to coach and nurture his team - I am blessed with that opportunity as he heads the Roche Global IT Solution Center - KL. Outside my existing line of work, I embarked on a new role as a Business Partner, an IT Opportunity Simon created because he felt there was a way to better bridge the connection between IT and our Business. As a sponsor of the role, Simon also plays the role as a Mentor, taking the time to understand my development needs to provide constructive feedback on the growth aspects in my career. I am always in awe of Simon's ability to showcase his deep training of structured thinking that showed foresight, his drive to use innovation to push the boundaries of IT solutions and to be approachable in discussing his views, opening the possibility of exploring new vantage points. Above all, Simon inspires others around him to do better and to never forget the real people we're ultimately helping - our customers. Simon is without a doubt, a valuable Leader to our organization.”

“I had the pleasure of working with Simon for the past 1.5 years. He’s a very passionate and ambitious leader. And I used the term leader because he carried that title with credibility. Always there to shed a light for you when you needed it. Always there to lend his ears whenever you have a problem and always there for you when you needed an advise. He showed true empathy, clear guidance and direction as a great leader. I will definitely welcome a chance to work with him again in the near future. ”

“Simon is a Visionary Leader who is passionate about People, Business & our Customers . I have the pleasant opportunity to collaborate with Simon for the past one year and to witness his drive towards building winning & engaging teams . Simon leads with Integrity , drives innovation especially in the Data Science space, generates business value and is extremely a result driven individual . A great mentor and certainly a good friend to be with.”

“I've been working directly with Simon for the past ~3 years. He is very ambitious leader with clear strategy towards what he wants to achieve. He is able to build engaged and winning teams and drive them towards increasing productivity and higher working standards, always with focus on tangible business outcomes. Challenging status quo, continuous drive towards improvement, passion for people innovations are just a few of his key characteristics. Pleasure to working with you at Roche.”

“I have been collaborating with Simon in the Roche APAC Shared Service Center, where I work as Finance Manager. Some of his main contributions have been increasing IT productivity and driving innovation to create value for the business. Simon has proofed strong leadership, especially pursuing an ambitious vision and challenging the status quo. I enjoyed very much the experience with him!”

“Simon was my hiring manager when I joined Roche in 2010 and I have had the pleasure to work with him for several years. He is an extremely bright person and what has impressed me the most is his strategic mind-set. During his first year as the Head of the Business Intelligence & Master Data Organization Simon made sure that a clear Strategy that the whole organization could relate to was in place. Even though he had a clear Vision about how we should evolve, he managed to be very inclusive with the whole Leadership Team in order to ensure that everyone’s opinions and points of view were taken into account. This resulted in nice adoption of our strategy. He is a demanding leader who leads by example and his capacity to deliver is outstanding. He is constantly looking at ways to increase productivity and Business outcomes and during the years that we worked together I have seen a constant increase of our team’s throughput. This definitely helped with our Customer satisfaction that has regularly been at the top of IT’s results (ranging from 85% to 95%). I have seen Simon develop into a very caring and supportive Leader who looks after his people and always looks for ways to get the best out of them. I am personally very grateful for his support and coaching during the time that we worked together. Simon is an extremely valuable asset to any Organization looking for a strong and well-seasoned Leader. ”

“Simon was my first line manager in the IT department when I joined Roche in 2013. He is cosmopolitan and very open minded, one of the rare leaders leading by example I have had the pleasure to work with. Simon is a demanding manager, generally asking for outstanding performance but also fair in judgement, a good listener and always calm and in control. I very much enjoyed working for him and wish him continued success for the future!”

“"Solutioning expert, Master negotiator, Tenacious go-getter, Intelligent" are just few of the many phrases that comes to my mind when i think of the smart working professional Simon is. I worked with Simon in the Shared Services Center in KL where I am leading the User Services organization and he was leading the Solution Center. Simon has a knack for spinning any challenging situation into a positive one and has a natural leadership ability to steer and manage diverse teams. I've witnessed him create order from chaos on several instances, helping the teams set result-focused, realistic expectations. He is a champion executor and has a perfect blend of technical, infrastructure and business knowledge and uses his amazing people management skills to drive projects forward. Individuals with multifaceted skills and a can-do attitude to back it up with, are a difficult find and Simon is one who has mastered them both - a valuable investment for any organization. I am lucky to have worked with him. ”

“I have experienced Simon as an excellent leader with a passion for innovation and a strong sense for delivery and achieving results. Simon likes to challenge the status quo and stretch the boundaries of an organization. He has build a strong organization that did deliver a lot of innovation and new capabilities and at the same time was able to achieve significant cost savings through driving efficiency and a new way of working. Despite the high demand his team demonstrated high engagement levels and was very passionate about their work. I can only recommend Simon as a leader for an organization.”

“I worked with Simon for many years in different roles and lastly as peers in the same leadership team. What impressed me about Simon is his ability to challenge the status quo, his readiness to drive changes, his desire to improve IT productivity and efficiency. He always does these things by building and engaging his team and peers around him. He leads his team with passion and with integrity. I have seen in may occasions how he drives innovation within the organization and get results!”

“I worked with Simon since 2012 till 2017 together when he was my line manager and later broader team head. Simon is a very organized person with a clear vision and goal. He's striving for excellence. His combination of very good budgeting skills, communication skills and vision make him a very trustful team head. I learned a lot from him. He was mentoring how to solve project management issues, helped in critical situations and gave advice from real life experiences. Was great experience to work with him. ”

“Simon has been my second line manager since 2012 September. He is a great leader and mentor in my career. He knows how to lead a high performance team by setting clear vision, mission, direction, strategy and road map; he always provide career advice and opportunities to his members; he listens to all feedback carefully and can always seize the points quickly; he builds a fair working environment; He is the manager to lead by his influence, not by his position power. I also admire his professionalism. We have had meetings with senior leadership team together, and I observed how he was able to convince our partners by his understanding of others' pain points, deep IT knowledge, quick proposal and commitment. To our business partners, he is always reliable. Simon is respected by his integrity and passion. He is the leader that we can trust and follow. Simon took a lot of challenges in Roche, like building Roche global big data platform and data scientists team; setting up Roche APAC shared service center, etc. He can always inspire others who work with him, and achieve the target together! ”

“I can remember back in 2010 or 2011, in my first year at Roche, sitting nearby Simon (our desks were just a few metres away). I did not frequently work long hours, but whenever I did there was a good chance that Simon would be there on a call with the US. It was clear to me the level of dedication, and work ethic, that he had. We connected, due to common interests, and had many illuminating conversations (he has an almost insatiable curiosity, and is widely read and knowledgeable). Over the years I saw Simon develop into an active member of the senior IT Leadership team - but I also saw him as being a people focused leader who spends time identifying and developing talent. Simon is an excellent communicator, and a natural leader. It is not common to have a leader with this level of work ethics, intelligence and integrity. I did not get the opportunity to work with Simon, but given half a chance I would have jumped at it. With his high standards it would have definitely been hard work, but working in such an environment always produces learning and growth.”

“Simon is a visionary leader with the ambition of driving value in organisations using innovative technologies. I have had the pleasure of working with him in various capacities over the last 4 years and always found him to be a challenging thought partner, someone who strives for continuous improvement and is always looking for new ways of doing things. He excels at building global teams that are highly engaged and motivated and does so successfully by leading with authenticity and integrity. He has a lot of energy and this helps him see things to completion regardless of the obstacles.”

“Simon is my great mentor and manager. He's a good leader that provide career guidance to staff and willing to listen to issues as well as providing advise on how possible to resolve them. He has great strategy thinking and planning. Great attitude yet rigid in achieving his goals.It is certainly great to work with him and learn from him as well. ”

“Simon has setup Kuala Lumpur regional team for Roche and he has been an inspiring leader to us! He is approachable, a people person, a leader with great vision and strong leadership. He has been a great mentor and able to give us direction and guidance always. Besides, he is a very hardworking boss and a very good “captain” to KL team. I wish to take this opportunity to thank him for his great leadership and being a supportive boss to us always! Thank you Simon!”

“I know Simon since 2008 and we have achieved a lot working together. He had an amazing career path with growing responsibilities and this is no coincidence. First of all Simon is a person with a clear mind. It is almost like a physics rule, you can not leave him confused for a long period of time. I call this as the great ability to `zoom in and zoom out`. Adjusting the distance to see things clearly in the context, define it properly and manage it as needed. He can also immediately spot the confused ones in a room full of people. That comes very handy in stakeholder management. Secondly, Simon is a person of growth. He always has a well established view on `what is is next?` and potential both for himself and his organisation. It would not take long for him to list a wide span of ideas with the price tags on the table, from improving day to day operations up to strategic moves he would do if he was the CIO. He would also demand such mind set from key people in his organisation. Third thing I admire in Simon perhaps would be his never ending energy and will to learn, to work and to make a change and all within a strategy. One would not be surprised if he is studying the new hypes, reading about human psychology, analysing start up stories, discussing about the recent case studies on new management trends. It was a great experience to work with Simon and would be interesting to follow what he does next.”