GN Group

Kenneth Ullmann, VP and Chief Digital Officer at GN Group [GN: CO], brings over two decades of experience in the technology and business sectors. He has held various roles within GN, starting as the CIO for the headset division and later leading the digital business development teams, where he explored new products and digital capabilities. Ullmann has been serving as the CDO of GN Group for the past two and a half years, overseeing digital services, the hearing aid division, enterprise and consumer products and gaming products. He is dedicated to driving growth by transforming the traditional analogue business to digital within GN Group and ensuring the adoption of digital technologies across the entire enterprise.

This exclusive interview highlights Kenneth Ullmann’s visionary leadership and corporate excellence in driving business success through digital transformation. It delves into Ullmann’s insights into the pivotal role of agile methodologies, fostering a culture of experimentation and integrating AI into strategic initiatives for an organisation’s growth and success.

At a Glance:

• Highlights the transformational impact of adopting agile methodologies, fostering a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement.

• Discusses leadership philosophy in a compliancedriven environment, advocating for learning through experimentation and maintaining a high-risk appetite.

• Positioning AI exploration as integral to the organisation’s strategic direction, shaping product offerings and operational efficiencies

Beyond Quality: Balancing Excellence with Agility in Product Development

Over the years, there have been numerous challenges, particularly in working within the digital space of a company that is heavily focused on engineering and R&D. When dealing with physical products such as hearing aids, headsets, headphones and speakers, the company has always prioritized quality, ensuring that products are only launched when they are at their finest.

In contrast, my background in the digital space has instilled in me the philosophy of launching early and iterating quickly. The concept of a minimum viable product (MVP), working in shorter iterations, launching to test and learn in the marketplace, and improving both quality and capabilities over time are central to my approach. This method initially contradicted the company’s traditional product development processes, which involved defining, developing, testing and launching products in a very linear fashion. Adapting the executive management and the broader organisation to this new way of working has been a significant transformation. It required demonstrating that launching early to test and iterate can be a viable and effective path forward.

“The validity of an idea is determined by how well it is received by its intended audience, whether external customers or internal users”

Throughout this transition, I ensured my team knew they had full support. They understood that they were operating under my mandate and protection, creating a safe space for experimentation. If any mistakes were made, the responsibility was mine alone. This approach has significantly transformed the company over the past five to eight years. The principles of rapid iteration and incremental improvement have gradually spread throughout the organisation, even influencing the development and launch of our hardware products and software features. This transformation has not only been about changing processes but about fostering a culture that embraces experimentation, learning and continuous improvement.

Balancing Risk and Innovation: A Leadership Perspective

Even though working for a company bound by strict compliance, documentation rules and a low tolerance for risk, my leadership philosophy remains centred on learning through experimentation. As a leader and an individual, I believe in giving things a try and accepting that I might not get it right initially, but if I don’t start, I will never learn from my mistakes. My philosophy, which I preach to my teams, is that we know every day on the job from both our successes and our failures.

When approaching new initiatives and experiments, I maintain a high degree of risk appetite and a willingness to fail. However, we carefully define our gates and increments in very small batches, allowing us to learn quickly and validate our assumptions early on. This way, we can abandon unfeasible ideas before investing too much time or resources into them.

Audience-Centric Approach: Measuring Success Through Feedback

I don’t determine what is a good idea and what is not; I leave it to our target audience. If the product or service is customer-facing, we rely on customer feedback, but if it caters to internal functions like finance and operations or spans the entire organisation, we gather feedback from internal stakeholders. The validity of an idea is determined by how well it is received by its intended audience, whether external customers or internal users. The key to successful validation is proving that the idea resonates well with our target audience based on their feedback and the expectations of our customers and internal stakeholders.

Navigating the Digital Shift: Practical Tips For CIOs

I operate in both the hearing and communication industries, but my role as CDO encompasses responsibility for all customer-facing digital services as well as our innovation and incubation efforts. Reflecting on my journey from a classical CIO, managing infrastructure and applications to a commercially oriented digital enabler, my advice to others in similar transitions is simple—do it. We live in the AI era, surrounded by an abundance of technical capabilities and nearly limitless possibilities. However, getting too caught up in defining security models and governance and setting up all the guardrails before exploring these new technologies can delay progress and make you late to the game.

My recommendation is to start small, experiment and learn as you go. Begin with smaller increments that allow you to test and iterate rapidly. Along the way, you can build the necessary foundations, including security frameworks and operating models.

AI: The Cornerstone of our Strategy

We heavily invest in various AI capabilities, including generative AI and advanced computational technologies. These investments are designed to enhance our organisation’s efficiency while integrating these capabilities into our product offerings to make our customers more satisfied and loyal. AI exploration and implementation in all its forms are at the cornerstone of our strategy, playing a crucial role in everything we do.