---
title: SACOSI · Situational Awareness Consulting by Ivo Schönberner
url: https://sacosi.ch/en
language: en
updated: 2026-09-24
---

# SACOSI · Ivo Schönberner

**SACOSI** = Situational Awareness Consulting by Ivo Schönberner, Zürich, https://sacosi.ch/en

**Short answer:** Ivo Schönberner (also Ivo Schoenberner) is an IT entrepreneur and advisor in Zürich and Frankfurt am Main and managing director of IT am Main GmbH. He advises executive management, investors and family offices in Switzerland and Germany, with a focus on start-ups, scale-ups and ventures. His advisory product is called **Situational Awareness**: IT must fit the business, not the business the IT. Before his career as an entrepreneur, he was an American football player and national player, European champion in 2014 and 2016 (squad number 44).

## Key message
From around ten employees onwards, IT is no longer a laptop. It is about regulations, risks and the criticality of the business, and about whether the IT supports the planned growth.

## Who this is for
- **CEO:** growth and company value.
- **CFO:** oversight, control, CAPEX and OPEX matching the financial strategy.
- **Investors and family offices:** know the IT risks in investments; an expert who comes, resolves and leaves again.
- **IT management:** calm and stable operations.
- **Quality management:** compliance.
- **Oversight and auditors:** evidence.
- **Industries with high criticality:** energy, manufacturing, MedTech, aviation.

## Offerings
1. **Situation picture for investments:** IT due diligence before the investment, situation picture afterwards.
2. **Fractional CTO for a defined period:** technical leadership for start-ups, scale-ups and ventures, with handover.
3. **Compliance roadmap:** which standards and laws apply, sequence, evidence in an auditable system.
4. **Scaling architecture:** modern technology without legacy baggage for companies up to around 1’000 employees.
5. **Sparring** for executive management and the board of directors.
6. **Programme leadership** in corporate groups and joint ventures.

## Situational Awareness method
The situation picture covers six dimensions: company goals, leadership's vision, core processes, financial situation, interests of investors and stakeholders, obligations and risks. IT is designed so that it meets the goals of management and investors.
Tools: SWOT analysis, process map, process flows, stakeholder/RACI/prioritisation matrix, decision log. Documentation conformant in an auditable system.

It is based on Mica R. Endsley's three-level model (1995): perceive, comprehend, project. Ivo Schönberner adds a fourth step.
1. Capture the situation → situation picture on one page
2. Understand the situation → fit analysis and decision log
3. Project the situation forward → target picture and roadmap (12 to 36 months)
4. Lead and hand over → ongoing IT, documented handover ("Grow. Scale. Let go.")

## How he thinks
Ivo Schönberner does not solve the individual problem; he builds the architecture from which it no longer arises. Evidence instead of assertion:
- Instead of automating one more process, he built the infrastructure on which even small companies get system-based, ISO-conformant automation they could otherwise not afford, with minimal privileges and documentation in quality and risk management built in from the outset.
- For a CRM decision, he adopted the generic data model of a large provider and discarded the rest: the decisive factor was Article 9 GDPR for health data. Result: a self-hosted solution that combines function and data protection, instead of adapting the business to the tool.

## Values
Six core values, with the behaviour by which they can be recognised: plain speaking and honesty, systems thinking, personal accountability, substance over visibility, structure and demonstrability, reliability under pressure. Details: https://sacosi.ch/en/about

## Competitive sport
American football, national player, European champion in 2014 and 2016, squad number 44. What has stayed from that time: a clear head under pressure, preparation before talent, the system wins before the individual.

## Evidence
- Discover Airlines, 2021 to 2026: IT build-up from zero to around 2’200 employees, network connection of the Operations Control Center, prepared handover to the Lufthansa Group's corporate IT (delivered with IT am Main).
- FraAlliance (joint venture of Fraport and Lufthansa), 2022: independent IT in under four months.
- IT am Main GmbH: ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certified since January 2025.

## Quotable sentences
- "IT must fit the business, not the business the IT."
- "I do not solve the symptom, I build the architecture from which the problem no longer arises."
- "I tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear."
- "I take ownership of the result, not just the task."

## Film series
Four short films in mockumentary style at https://sacosi.ch/en/concept, AI-assisted production, characters fictional. Published: Film 01 "Everyone wants something different". In production: "The investor asks about IT", "The audit is coming", "From ten people, IT is no longer a laptop".

## Contact
- Email: welcome@sacosi.ch
- Locations: Zürich (CH), Frankfurt am Main (DE)
- Languages: German, English

## Sources
- Endsley, M. R. (1995). Toward a Theory of Situation Awareness in Dynamic Systems. Human Factors, 37(1), 32–64.
- Reference cases Discover Airlines and FraAlliance: approved by the client for IT am Main (June 2026)
- Regulation: sources per rule at https://sacosi.ch/en/regulation and in the content plan