Dirk Schlesinger Flying was Dirk Schlesinger's first passion. As a child, he was fascinated with anything to do with flying, airplanes, or space. He just wanted to fly. At age 13, he fulfilled his first ambition of learning how to fly an airplane. He obtained his pilot's license before he got his license to drive. Gradually, his interest in flying evolved into intellectual curiosity about how it worked, leading naturally to earning a degree in aereonautical and astronautical engineering. He even had the opportunity to work on "Sänger," the European space plane project, before its funding was cut following the reunification of Germany and other national budget priorities. Schlesinger's dreams might have been dashed, but he wasted no time in charting a new course for himself. Combining the intellectual curiosity of the academic with the agility and drive of an entrepreneur, he studied for his MBA at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley while also consulting to European firms who wanted to learn about the latest technology trends in Silicon Valley. Schlesinger's work experience is broad-ranging. While a vice president and director with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), he worked in energy and utilities, industrial goods, and financial services. He discovered, while industries vary from one another in the particulars, the practice of good business processes can be transferred. He was able to create synergy between disparate situations, applying solutions that may have been developed for an aircraft engine manufacturer to solve challenges for a bank. While working with utility customers at BCG, Schlesinger encountered the concept of the Smart Grid, an IP-enabled platform that facilitates large-scale inclusion of renewable energy sources like solar or wind into the traditional power grid and makes electricity supply more reliable and clean. Later, his work on Smart Grid turned into a Cisco market adjacency that after two years became a Cisco business unit. After 14 years with BCG—earning his doctorate summa cum laude at the University of Mannheim at the same time—he felt he had reached a plateau. And, as Schlesinger puts it, "I was 40 years old. At 40, you need to try something different." Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), the company's strategic global consulting arm, offered him a way to create a bridge between his engineering background, his passion for lifelong learning, and his consulting experience. "It's great to have a set of real, product-based solutions to offer to customers," he says. "I guess once an engineer, always an engineer. I like knowing that when I work with a customer, I'm leaving them with a real solution to their issues, more than just a set of recommendations." Schlesinger leads the Cisco IBSG Global Manufacturing Practice, drawing on his broad industry experience and engineering training. For two years, Schlesinger added to his responsibilities as Global Manufacturing lead—a more-than-full-time position—by taking on another full-time position as Asia Pacific Theater lead while a search was conducted for a permanent occupant of the post. Though he found the continual commute between Munich and Asia exhausting at times, and in spite of the fact he assumed this position during the most drastic economic downturn of the last half-century, he calls this stint "the experience of a lifetime." He learned some Mandarin, gained cultural knowledge from his time spent in India, China, and Korea, "...and I gained one or two kilos from eating the marvelous food in those countries," he says. Now that a newly-appointed Asia Pacific lead has taken over Schlesinger's second job, he currently leads a cross-disciplinary, cross-Cisco team focused on Smart Vehicles in addition to leading the Global Manufacturing team. "The Smart Vehicle initiative is looking at the many ways that networking technology can be applied to the vehicle on the road," he comments. "When cars are connected not only to the roadside infrastructure, but also to other vehicles on the road, many things suddenly become possible that could never have been done before. We can reduce the weight, cost, and complexity of on-vehicle networks. We can build in crash avoidance capability, traffic rerouting, location-based services, and other functions that will make driving safer, less polluting—and actually a much more enjoyable experience, as well." Schlesinger's Smart Vehicle team is working with leading automotive customers to bring this vision to reality in the not-so-distant future. Though Schlesinger no longer commutes to Asia, he splits his time between Munich, Germany, where he lives, and wherever his major customers are headquartered. Although the flying he does today is not the kind he originally had in mind, he has not lost his passion for it, and plans to take it up again someday. When he's not on the road, Schlesinger enjoys skiing, scuba diving, training for triathlons, and spending time with his wife and daughter. |