Stefan Koch

I started out as a machine mechanic. Then came fifteen years with the Zug cantonal police — traffic and response policing, regional police, criminal investigation. For the last eight of those I worked in digital forensics. So I have been working with data since 2010; back then it just wasn't quarterly figures, it was evidence.

That period still shapes how I build systems. In forensics the best analysis is worthless if you cannot trace every step of it: where did this value come from, who touched it and when, does the chain hold up in court? Those are the same questions I put to data pipelines today. Traceability is not a feature you bolt on later.

In 2018 I moved into data consulting — through Trivadis, Accenture, b.telligent and ALTYCA. The same pattern kept showing up: the platform grows faster than anyone's understanding of it. Eventually nobody dares to change anything.

Alongside that I have been teaching at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences since 2020, where I direct two CAS programmes on business intelligence and data engineering. Teaching changed my consulting work more than any single project did: once you have to explain something to twenty people well enough that it lands on a Saturday afternoon, you start building different systems. Simpler ones.

On 1 September 2026 I am founding Nitako GmbH to offer exactly that: building data platforms, enabling teams, and doing both in a way that keeps running without me.