Hafiz Muhammad Adnan
Head of IT, PlantaCorp GmbH
Hamburg, Germany
Profile
A hands-on IT leader focused on building reliable technology foundations, modernizing enterprise applications, and transforming business processes through AI and automation.
Experience
Head of IT
January 2022 to present
PlantaCorp GmbH
- Set the corporate IT roadmap and align infrastructure investment with business needs.
- Manage IT budgets, vendor agreements and external service providers.
- Led the migration from dedicated mail servers to Microsoft 365, including SharePoint and Teams.
- Lead the move from legacy tools to modern web platforms.
- Design and manage hybrid infrastructure, backup and business continuity.
- Lead IT security and data protection work, with GDPR and NIS2 in mind.
- Build AI-powered automation and integrate core business platforms.
IT Consultant Infrastructure
July 2019 to December 2021
PlantaCorp GmbH
- Architected, deployed and maintained corporate servers, with a focus on availability and virtualization.
- Managed network and security infrastructure.
- Acted as the main technical contact for system integration, databases and directory services.
- Administered cloud, storage and backup systems, and trained users.
Working Student IT
December 2018 to June 2019
PlantaCorp GmbH
- Supported cloud infrastructure operations.
- Maintained Linux environments, containers and web servers.
- Worked on data indexing and search.
Frontend Developer
February 2018 to November 2018
P & M Agentur Software Consulting GmbH
- Developed interfaces with JavaScript, Node.js, PHP, HTML5, CSS and Angular.
- Worked in agile sprints with Jira and Asana, including quality assurance testing.
Selected projects
- Legacy Application Modernization (completed): Moving a business-critical desktop application to the browser.
- Digital Process Automation (completed): Taking a document-heavy business process from legacy software to a modern web application.
- Enterprise AI Platform (completed): A self-hosted AI workspace that keeps company data under company control.
- AI-Powered Business Automation (completed): Handing repetitive operational work to AI, with people checking the result.
- Enterprise Infrastructure Modernization (ongoing): Building and running the foundation everything else depends on.
- IT Operations & Endpoint Management (completed): Central control of devices, software, patches and support.
- Customer Portal Migration (completed): A live portal moved to a modern stack, one step at a time.
Expertise
- IT Leadership & Strategy:
- IT infrastructure strategy and architecture, IT operations and team leadership, Technology evaluation and procurement, Digital transformation, IT budgeting and vendor management, Enterprise IT project management.
- Enterprise Infrastructure:
- Windows Server and Active Directory, Microsoft 365 administration, Hypervisors and virtualization, Linux server administration, Network infrastructure and VPN, NAS and enterprise storage, Backup and disaster recovery, Endpoint management and monitoring, Cloud platforms, Web servers and reverse proxies.
- AI & Automation:
- Local LLM deployments, Open WebUI, Claude and Anthropic API integrations, OpenAI API integrations, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI-powered internal knowledge systems, AI agents and business process automation, Python automation, Workflow automation, AI-assisted software development.
- Software & Web Development:
- Python, FastAPI, React, TypeScript, JavaScript, Next.js, NestJS and Node.js, PHP, SQL and MariaDB, PostgreSQL, REST APIs, Docker and Docker Compose, Modernization of legacy applications, Internal business application development, Business system integrations, Git and code review.
- Security & Identity:
- Microsoft Entra ID and SSO, Active Directory, Endpoint security and patch management, VPN and remote access, Access control and authentication, Backup and recovery strategy, GDPR documentation and data protection by design, IT security architecture and compliance preparation.
Education
M.Sc. Information Engineering
2016 to 2019
Kiel University of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschule Kiel)
B.S. Computer Science, dual degree
2011 to 2015
Lancaster University (UK) and COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (Pakistan)
Languages
English, fluent · German, B1