The Fixer's Dilemma: What 3 Years Outside IT Taught Me About Leading Transformations
Heller Search Associates, Wednesday, October 7th, 2026
Ex-IT leader Christoph Hesterbrink says transformation leaders focus too much on fixing and too little on educating sponsors.
Writing for Heller Search Associates, executive IT consultant Christoph Hesterbrink reflects on three years spent investing in and advising startups, advising on ERP transformations and chairing his municipality's finance board.
The distance showed him that insight alone doesn't move an organization but must be turned into a coalition of trust among people with different incentives and authority, and that the hard questions he asks as an investor belonged inside his own transformations.
He concludes he focused too much on fixing problems and not enough on educating the executives sponsoring change.