A new business line
I led the acquisition of a strategic stake in PAYUCA, which gave ABB a new channel and launched a Charging-as-a-Service business model.
AboutAltered Principles · Ghent
Hello, I am Bernd Fastenrath.
I help industrial companies launch a new market or business line and hand it over running.
- Experience
- 20+ years
- Last role
- ABB E-mobility
- Based in
- Ghent, Belgium
- Languages
- German, English
Background
Technology that only pays once a business model is built around it.
I have worked in commercial and product roles for more than 20 years, most of them on technology that only pays once a business model is built around it: truck telematics at Daimler, machine-to-machine connectivity at Telefónica, location data at HERE Technologies, drone traffic management at Unifly and EV charging at ABB E-mobility.
Most recently I was Vice President Strategy & Partnerships at ABB E-mobility, where I built new business models around EV charging and presented investment proposals and M&A business cases to the ABB Executive Committee, and before that Chief Commercial Officer of Unifly. From 2023 to 2024 I sat on the advisory board of PAYUCA Park & Charge in Vienna. I founded Altered Principles in 2025.
I am German, have lived in Belgium for many years, and run Altered Principles BV from Ghent, as one person with a small bench of senior freelancers I have delivered with. I work in German and English.
Launches I led before Altered Principles
The work I do now is the work I did inside these companies: taking a product that works into a new market, or onto a new model.
A cost centre turned into a profit centre
I led the programme that automated service operations with an AI assistant and moved the service organisation from cost centre to profit centre.
New markets
I led Unifly's entry into adjacent markets, and partnerships with Airbus and Deloitte opened the maritime sector. I also worked with the CEO to prepare and close the Series B+ funding round.
A partner business
I built the partner business with SAP through new initiatives in supply chain and customer experience, with customers such as Colgate, Dachser and Coca-Cola, and took pilots such as NordicWay from concept to paid deployment.
What that background gives a launch
Technology that only pays when a business is built around it
Truck telematics, machine-to-machine connectivity, location data, drone traffic management, EV charging: in each case the technology worked well before anyone had settled who pays, through which channel and on what model. That gap is what I now close for industrial companies.
Both sides of the table
I have built M&A business cases for an executive committee, prepared a company for a funding round and advised a board on investment readiness. I know what owners and investors ask of a new business line before they believe in it: a buyer, a model, numbers that hold up, and someone who owns it. The method I call Launch to Own is built to answer those questions in writing.
Partners as a channel
Much of my career was spent building partnerships that sell: SAP at HERE, Airbus and Deloitte at Unifly, PAYUCA at ABB. A new market rarely opens through a sales team alone; it opens through the partner whose customers already trust them.
How I work
I lead the launch and set the conditions above the people who run it: your own team, or a partner you choose.
I report to you until the business line runs without me. I take on a small number of launches each quarter, so each one gets my time where it matters most, in the three months of Design.
How I workWhere I worked
Next step
Let's scope your next launch.
In 45 minutes I tell you where your launch is likely to stall and whether Design is the right next step.
3-month Design · From €65k, fixed fee · Work product is yours
If Design ends in a no-go, you stop after three months with a written answer and all the work product. No licence, no exit fee. I take on 3–5 launches per quarter.
Bernd FastenrathFounder, Altered Principles
bernd.fastenrath@altered-principles.com