Taking matters into his own hands, clearing obstacles out of the way: Maurice Zengel is a big fan of that. Our Head of Projects & Processes loves actively helping to shape change. What moves him and what he is currently driving forward.
His day starts early. Around 5:30 a.m., when his two children are still asleep, it's off to a workout first. Maurice Zengel has set up his own little gym at home. Exercise as a counterbalance to his desk job: the 35-year-old has done it that way for a long time.
His morning routine already reveals quite a bit about Zengel's attitude, to life as well as to work. He likes movement – in sport and in the figurative sense. He takes the initiative when something isn't running properly. For example, when he learned in early 2024 that the daycare center in his neighborhood needed money. Zengel promptly founded a support association and, as its chairman, has been taking care of the necessary funding ever since.
From bank clerk to innovation manager
His career began in classic fashion: an apprenticeship as a bank clerk at Berliner Sparkasse, followed by a few years there as a customer advisor. But during this time the profession itself changed. Digitalization advanced, and more and more people preferred to handle banking or investing online. "When I started, there were usually still more customers than employees in the branch," Zengel recounts. "That gradually changed."
The development was unstoppable. Zengel didn't just want to let it come at him. Alongside his job, he earned his Bankfachwirt qualification at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, studied economics at the FOM University of Applied Sciences for Economics & Management, and became first a sales coach and then an innovation manager at the savings bank.
The rise of the fintechs was indeed a challenge for traditional banks like his employer. But Zengel wasn't afraid of it. He found the development exciting and got involved, for example in a project for advising customers via WhatsApp chat. "I'd rather help actively shape change than have to adapt to it only under outside pressure."
New perspectives at quirion
At some point, however, the room to shape things ran out for him in the savings bank world. He had achieved quite a lot, but was looking for new perspectives. And he found them in January 2022, as Head of Projects & Processes at quirion. "From the very beginning I had far more freedom here to push good ideas forward and ultimately to bring them to life, too."
One of his first projects: gift cards for investing. In late 2021, quirion was the first financial services provider in Germany to bring such gift cards into stores. Initially they were available in around 3,600 Edeka supermarkets. Zengel took over as project lead and increasingly focused on digital distribution. The gift cards are now available on many platforms, for example at Amazon, Payback and Wunschgutschein. "The offering is being very well received," Zengel says with delight. "Above all as an original gift idea that gives a meaningful nudge toward building wealth."
At the moment, Zengel – like numerous colleagues at quirion – is spending a lot of time on artificial intelligence. In 2024, Q.Ai, Germany's first digital investment advisor, was launched. The goal: to make investing understandable for beginners in a chat and to show them how to reach their personal investment goals. "Of course, that's far from exhausting the possibilities of AI," Zengel explains. "We're currently working on soon being able to use it to answer some customer inquiries quickly, around the clock."
It's important to him to stress that the use of technology should never be an end in itself. Not everything that is new is automatically better. "There always has to be a recognizable added value for people at the forefront." Turning this added value into products and services takes time and know-how. Zengel looks forward to helping drive forward quirion's future developments for its clients as well.
Zengel puts his knowledge and experience to use not only in his work. As a juror in the business plan competition of Investitionsbank Berlin, he also passes them on to young entrepreneurs and companies. Together with them, he fine-tunes things like how to set up for success and financial planning. He simply has a passionate love of helping to move things forward and make them better.
