Kath-Consulting provides significant business experiences accumulated over decades across various industries, functions and international management roles.
Franziskus career of over 26 years is almost entirely filled with international leadership experience across all levels. Coming from Hamburg in Germany, he started his global career in Switzerland in local roles with international exposure. Since then, he exclusively operated in international and global capacities, living in Switzerland, Belgium, and Singapore while leading diverse teams across Japan, Korea, China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Europe, South Africa, the USA, Canada, and Brazil. This journey has allowed him to embrace and navigate diverse cultures while gaining comprehensive end-to-end business experience in Pharmaceuticals, fast-paced Consumer Health, and, most recently, at the Corporate level.
Franziskus successfully developed and executed strategies in Operations and Quality to implement corporate vision, build high-performing teams, and enhance manufacturing reliability both internally and externally. By establishing robust processes and systems, he fostered a culture of continuous learning. As Vice President of Source Quality, he led a global organization of over 200 employees, managing 270 contract manufacturers and 3,200+ direct material suppliers for Johnson & Johnson’s Consumer Health business. A key accomplishment was launching a supplier reliability program that reduced supply disruptions by 70%, cut lost sales by 56%, and supported procurement cost savings of 5-7%.
Franziskus contributed to the development and deployment of the Johnson&Johnson Enterprise Quality strategy across all three sectors, impacting over 10,000 Quality employees. As part of a select team of seven (CQO Forum), he helped design a 15-year vision for the Quality organization, primarily focused on digital transformation. Subsequently, he played a key role in executing the strategy and established a corporate-level team to drive change and accelerate its digital initiatives and establish design controls. In just three years, the strategy delivered substantial value by improving Quality and Compliance (Q&C) processes, introducing digital capabilities, centralizing data management, and enhancing talent through upskilling programs. These digital solutions enabled significant value capture by automating Q&C processes, leveraging data insights, and reducing cycle times by over 90% and inventory. Applied technologies included intelligent automation, NLP, generative AI, data modeling, ERP, and lab automation. ROIs ranged from 1:3 to 1:7, generating Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Experience (3E Value – savings, avoidance, and increased sales). The company’s QA organization became an industry leader in digital Quality advancements, both within the corporation and across the pharmaceutical industry. A notable achievement was developing a generative AI application for intelligent document processing, setting a benchmark in the regulated industry.
Franziskus developed and executed strategies on Corporate level. He advises startups and SMEs on strategies for engaging with multinationals, refining the value propositions, and successfully winning business. Additionally, he directly supports his son and his team in growing their startup, which helps SME clients in Switzerland with their digital transformation. He trains on two board member courses: the SBA25.02 - Startup Board Academy course in Basel (complete) and the 25.1 Diploma Program for Board Members at the Swiss Board School, University of St. Gallen (HSG).
Over 26 years, Franziskus gained leadership expertise in GMP manufacturing for APIs, pharmaceuticals, and consumer products. His experience spans over R&D, scale-up, product lifecycle management, plant and site QA leadership, and process excellence. These roles exposed him to all the typical business challenges, including both technical and people leadership demands. His solutions involved developing and optimizing chemical processes, reducing costs, managing suppliers and external manufacturers, addressing disruptions and major quality issues, enhancing capacity utilization, and successfully managing audits. Franziskus shaped several global organizations and brings over nine years of experience in external manufacturing and supplier relationship management, consistently delivering results in complex environments.
Over his career, Franziskus spent more than nine years managing supplier networks from both operational and quality perspectives. While living in Singapore, he worked directly with external manufacturers in China, Japan, and India as an account manager. As Senior Director of External API QA, he was responsible for the quality and compliance of 150 external manufacturers and approximately 1,500 direct material suppliers. As VP of Source Quality, he oversaw 3,200 suppliers and more than 270 contract manufacturers. Franziskus experience spans all areas of the business, including Operations, Supply Chain Planning, Quality, EH&S, leadership, performance management, and contract execution. He introduced structured programs that improved performance reliability, reducing supply disruptions by 70%, minimizing lost sales by 56%, and supporting procurement cost reductions of 5-7%.
For 2.5 years, Franziskus represented the supply chain and QA functions within the Consumer Health business development team, contributing to strategic decisions on acquisitions and divestitures and governed M&A integration programs. During the weekly reviews of ongoing deals, he monitored operational, R&D, quality, and regulatory aspects. As deals progressed, he ensured timely onboarding of the right functional experts to assess risks and identify resolution pathways early. This approach enhanced the speed and quality of due diligence, ultimately supporting well-informed acquisition decisions.
As a certified Six Sigma Green and Black Belt, and a process excellence leader in operations, continuous improvement is one of Franziskus core strengths. For example, as a plant manager and process excellence leader, he transformed the API plant's quality and safety culture, cutting critical human errors by 90% and reducing cost of non-conformance to benchmark lows (1%). He also drove plant utilization beyond benchmarks to over 80%, increased capacity by 30%, and reduced product rejects to an industry-leading low of 1%. He also instilled a data driven culture and the incorporation of process excellence tools in daily work.
Throughout his career, Franziskus consistently delivered cost improvement initiatives across various roles. Below are some examples.
In Operations: Franziskus implemented chemical improvements and optimized equipment process flows, reducing product costs by up to 52% e.g. through optimizing cycle times by 46% and improving chemical yield by up to 25%. Additionally, he reduced workflow cycle times up to 70% by eliminating waste.
Digital Solutions: Digital solutions enabled millions in savings through simplified, automated processes, data democratization, new data insights, and employee digital assistance tools, resulting in cost avoidance and increased sales. The value was generated in the own as well as partnering functions, illustrating the importance of seamless collaboration across partner ecosystems.
In Quality: By streamlining workflows and introducing simplified, global standards, Franziskus reduced SOPs by 90%, travel costs by 50%, and on top reduced general workload and organizational complexity. He also launched an industry-wide supplier certification program with procurement. These initiatives led to a 30% cost reduction in the SQ department within two years and a 25% reduction in the R&DQ department within one year. Additionally, these improvements enhanced business partnerships, e.g. increased procurement buying power (supporting YOY cost reductions of 3-5%), reduced supply chain disruptions and lost sales (up to 56% for specific partners), e.g. through higher partner performance, availability of second-source materials, and shortened development cycles, also allowing to reduce partner costs in R&D.
A simultaneous IT system cutover caused a 30% capacity gap at a major API manufacturing plant, risking the supply of life-saving drugs for more than a year. Through relentless prioritization, very close cross-functional collaboration, bold interventions, and effective risk management, the teams prevented supply disruptions of single-sourced drugs.
Franziskus also managed several crises with external partners facing severe supply disruptions, such as operational failures, material issues, and health authority challenges, including warning letters and import bans. In all cases, success came through transparent collaboration with all stakeholders, and where needed, corrective actions focused on operational improvements, leadership support, and organizational changes based on trust.
A core strength of Franziskus is leading teams through transformation and change, both locally and globally. He successfully built and reshaped several global teams of over 200 people, driving significant performance improvements and leading transformational initiatives across multiple levels. This has resulted in high engagement scores, reaching up to 88%. Additionally, he run several organizational health programs to boost morale, leading to a 20% improvement in engagement scores.
With his passion for people development, Franziskus coached, mentored, and sponsored several emerging leaders, helping them advance or reposition their careers. This support ranged from developing their personal vision and brand, introducing them to senior leaders, and expanding their networks, to onboarding them into new roles. Some have even progressed to VP positions.