Mark Holtermann

Dedicated to optimising the performance of energy facilities across the power generation landscape, NAES looks to provide best-in-class operations, maintenance, fabrication, construction, engineering, and technical services to clients in the power, energy, and industrial sectors. 

As the sectors it serves digitally transform, NAES is keen to join its clients on their journey and embark on its own transformation. Driving this forward is Mark Holtermann the company’s Vice President of IT and Digitisation.

Accountable for all IT processes across NAES, Holtermann is also responsible for setting the company’s digital strategy, particularly when it comes to technology and its implementation for good.

A keen technologist himself, Holtermann explains how his interest in the field sparked early in his career: “I found I have a passion for identifying solutions. It doesn't always have to be technology, yet that tends to be where my core focus remains. I enjoy finding where a process is inefficient – maybe there's a communication challenge, there's something that needs to be streamlined. I tend to find myself looking for improvements and partnering with folks, trying to understand their needs and identifying solutions.”

“Over the course of time, I've tended to try and create a digital workplace where things are integrated and automated, while equally focusing on creating seamless customer experience, depending on the organisation I worked for. That passion for identifying effective business-driven valuable, innovative type solutions just drives me,” he continues.

The VP’s passion for identifying solutions has come in handy throughout his career as he encountered different technology-related challenges: “There’s been a lot of legacy technical debt and business processes that were very challenging. On top of this and along with technology challenges, I would say change management is equally challenging, especially when it comes to different cultural challenges and different company cultures that need navigating.”

As a strategic and comprehensive leader, Holtermann notes how it has been important to him to ensure that those who lead him align with his own values, passions and ideas: “I will ask a question about the leader that I'm going to work for, a simple question: what is your leadership style? More often than not, I'll find the individual – who maybe hasn't thought of that in a while – has trouble answering. However, occasionally, thankfully, I've run into leaders where, not only did I feel there was alignment right from the start, I felt like I could learn from them. There have been some encounters I've had that have maybe helped me improve some different skills.” 

Commenting on his own leadership values and practices, he adds: “The bottom line is, I like to lead with the spirit of collaboration and transparency. I value integrity, and I definitely believe in levity; you’ve got to keep things light and bring a calm spirit in the middle of a storm, so to speak. The overall culture I try to promote in the team, not to be redundant, is transparency, collaboration, respect, excellence, and accountability.”

Now, as Holtermann looks to refine his own skills and build on his learning, as the technology space evolves to become increasingly complex, he concludes: “On the technology side, I would like to learn more about hyper-automation and intelligent automation. I did get to work with and had a team at my prior company of data scientists and AI engineers – it's just a very amazing, advanced way of thinking through things and will continue to be for as far as we can see. The change from simple business processes to that continuous machine-learning type of automation where we're improving as we go, is something I am keen to invest more time in so I can learn more about it.”

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