Partner & MD, Breitenstein Consulting
Petra Pötschke
Petra guides organizations through digital transformation with a strong human-centered perspective. With 25+ years of international leadership experience, she bridges technology strategy with organizational culture, helping family businesses and C-level leaders accelerate digital readiness, adopt practical AI, and drive sustainable change.
About Petra Pötschke
Petra is Equity Partner & Managing Director at Breitenstein Consulting, where she enables organizations to navigate digital transformation with a human-centered approach. Following her international assignment with Siemens Corporation in the US (1999-2003), she pioneered Siemens' first worldwide Shared Service Center with fully digital workflows and offshore operations in India, long before digital-first became mainstream. At Breitenstein Consulting, she advises family-owned businesses, owners, and C-level executives on organizational transformation, digital readiness, practical AI implementation, and the human factor in M&A transactions — bridging technology strategy with organizational culture and sustainable change.
Throughout her 25+ year international career, Petra held leadership positions across global corporations and startups. She served as HR Director at an IT banking company, part of Fidelity (2003-2005), managing M&A integration and post-merger processes. At Siemens IT Solutions (2006-2009), she led application management teams across India, Russia, and Germany while implementing a worldwide competence management system. As Global HR Business Partner for Siemens Real Estate, later also for Tax, Finance & Controlling (2010-2020), she advised executive teams and drove organizational development for 3,000+ employees across international units. As COO of a digital education startup (2021-2022), she was part of the “German Accelerator KickStart Program”, scaled operations and coached multiple startup founders. Petra holds an academic degree in Business Administration from the Cooperative State University Mannheim and is certified in Systemic Organizational Development & Coaching (ISB Wiesloch, 2017) and AI for Business Innovation (London Business School, 2025), among various other certifications. She currently serves on advisory boards and is exploring how digital readiness can be integrated into the German education system.