A Leader with a Strong Purpose

Marc-Julian Siewert has held various senior roles at Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) and Veridos (a joint venture between G+D and Bundesdruckerei) since 2013, becoming a Member of the Management Board of Veridos in 2019 before his appointment as CEO and Chair of the Management Board at the beginning of 2022.

He holds a master’s degree in International Management and completed his studies in Business Administration and Management in London, Quebec City, New York and Madrid.

Veridos is one of the key players in the industry, so Francis Tuffy – editor of ID & Secure Document News™ – sat down (virtually) with Marc-Julian to learn a little more about the leader and his strong purpose.

Q: Firstly, congratulations to you on your appointment as CEO and thank you for taking the time to reach out to IDN readers.

Before we get into how you see the ID and secure document industry evolving over the coming years, can you give some background to yourself, your education and your early career?

A: Francis, thank you for this opportunity. Since the beginning, I have always been passionate about entrepreneurship, driving things forward, challenging the status quo and seeing progress unfold.

After my first experience while running a small business, I embarked on the journey to study abroad, meet, work and brainstorm with more than 80 different nationalities. Besides the lessons taken from university, I was truly fortunate to learn so much about different backgrounds, cultures and perspectives.

This sentiment has become ever more present to me during my days in technology consulting, but especially when I joined G+D Currency Technology. It was here where I developed a deep respect for the variety of different customers around the world. A good part of my career was also spent in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America. And now, at Veridos, which has 100+ countries as customers, this asset is a key part of my daily work.

Q: Your career to date at G+D / Veridos has exposed you to management roles in sales, operations, R&D, supply-chain management and more. Is it possible to single out a role that you have enjoyed most?

A: It’s hard to say which role I enjoyed most as the collaboration between all functions is key to delivering first-class products and solutions as well as seeing happy customers.

Above all, I genuinely enjoy working with people and nurturing relationships. I draw a lot of energy from the relationships built with people in our industry and the long-lasting trust that our customers, partners and co-workers place in us. For me, trust and integrity are the basis for long-lasting relationships.

The impact we have on the lives of so many people around the world, facilitating transactions in so many areas of life, enabling them to travel, to work abroad and make a living is truly inspiring to me.

I really admire the purpose of Veridos and what our work means for people in so many places. Our mission is to provide people with a legal identity and thus give them access to so many important things in life.

We at Veridos strongly believe that a unique legal identity is a human right and should be accessible to everyone no matter where they are. It opens the doors to the physical and virtual worlds.

Q: What do you think will be the key innovations in ID documents and identity management in the coming years?

A: A key component is collaboration that goes beyond borders, regions and certainly any one company’s capabilities. That being said, we need to further foster standards within our industry as we are all serving our end-customers, the people.

Enhancing the way we manage private sensitive data such as health data and vaccination certificates is crucial. This can be done by linking it to passport and relevant travel data, for example.

In order to do this successfully, we welcome clear legislation and directives throughout the overall regulatory framework, allowing for international standards, rather than national solutions.

Regarding the future of IDs, we cannot downplay the importance of what we call ‘phygital identities’ which represents a harmony between our physical documents and a digital complement: both of which are key to Veridos’ diverse portfolio. This harmony will foster significant advances in document security and in the way citizens interact with their governments and the wider world.

Whatever the format of a citizen’s identity document, be that a passport, an ID card or an ID on a smartphone, we are at the forefront of securing these credentials.

While continuing to innovate in the digital space our security experts work tirelessly to also make documents more secure from a physical perspective. For example, providing a more seamless integration with authorities or when crossing international borders. An exciting concept is the easy pass concept which is being tested in various pilot projects. The physical and the digital space will remain, however they will become much more interconnected than today.

Q: What is Veridos doing to make ‘phygital IDs’ a reality?

A: Besides a number of development projects, partly in conjunction with governments, Veridos is driving innovation in the areas of seamless technologies and solutions, especially enabling a smooth and agnostic integration in today’s software environments. While the connection between the physical and the digital spaces has to be enabled in the hardware components, the key enabler will be the software, developing a fully integrated eco-system, by making the different components smart.

Q: There’s no doubt that the pandemic has accelerated the pre-existing move toward automated border controls. Does Veridos have a role to play in making it easier, and safer, to travel internationally?

A: Certainly. Veridos’ first priority is to serve our customers with state-of-the-art solutions that cater to their requirements.

Therefore, we are taking an extremely customer and end-user-centric approach when designing solutions. Enabling seamless travel and providing the freedom to travel and transact freely, also in times of an international pandemic, is our key focus and motivation. Additionally, we strongly invest in technological innovations around biometrics and artificial intelligence, which will also reshape border control solutions of the future while heavily focusing on smooth and seamless passenger experience.

Q: How important do you believe it is to have an inclusive and intercultural perspective to create a strong management team and motivated workforce?

A: It is of utmost importance.

To me, an inclusive, open-minded and intercultural mindset is key to having a motivated, high performing team. Our diverse and open culture is in Veridos’ DNA.

Our mission of giving people a unique legal identity helps drive and motivate our team because their work has a direct impact on the lives of people around the world.

At Veridos, our customers are central for everything we do. We play a role in enabling governments around the world to provide legal identities. That is why providing superior service and best-in-class technological solutions to our customers motivates us as a team.

This makes all the difference – therefore, allow me to thank all the customers and partners who place their trust in Veridos and our team around the world, every day.