Founded during the turbulence of the pandemic, Q MISSION has quickly established itself as a specialist in delivering transformation projects that combine technical precision with human understanding. Guided by co-founders Jochen Hambach and Wasilios Kiosoglou, the firm is helping clients worldwide in the vehicle sectors navigate change in these uncertain times.

Based in Stuttgart/Herrenberg, Germany, Q MISSION has a unique name, and a rather unique approach as a ‘hands-on’ financial solutions specialist forging a niche role in the marketplace. This has helped it to become rapidly established in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, supporting companies by following its three buzz words: Clarity, Impact and Momentum.

Plotting the way forward are Jochen Hambach and Wasilios Kiosoglou, co-owners in their 40s, who first met when working in automotive finance at Daimler Group. Wasilios was involved in large IT transformation projects, with Hambach in general management and sales.

Hambach eventually moved onto board level with Athlon Car Lease, Daimler’s fleet operator, and it was in 2021, during a period of company restructuring at Daimler, when the two decided to do something different, noting how their former colleagues, all of whom they refer to as “experienced people,” were leaving.

“It would be good to try to bring them together, we thought, and support the automotive, financial services and mobility companies with major transformation projects.”

Hambach is a heavy metal enthusiast, who spends his time mountain biking and playing guitar. Kiosoglou enjoys time with his family and walking his dogs. The two set up Q MISSION around mid-2021, taking on projects in an individual capacity at first, while formally setting up the company.

It was not until the beginning of 2023 when the company was finally registered in Germany, albeit as a remote model from the very beginning as the people they wanted to work with were not based there, or willing to move to a single office.

“The process was quite long, quite complex,” notes Hambach. In comparison to other countries that is normal in Germany, he points out, although the time taken to set up Q MISSION was particularly onerous because of a lot of changes in taxation law were going on at the time. This meant that all the notaries were busy on other things, rather than founding companies.

It was unfortunate, as it also meant that during that time the prospective company had no tax number, making it hard to do business. They could not write invoices or generate income.

But it did not stop the company building a solid foundation, supporting Daimler Truck Financial Services in their rollout across five countries, a project that was successfully completed in less than four years. This involved a full functional rollout of the processes and system set-up for new truck leasing companies, including the migration of the existing contract portfolio.

The Daimler project enabled them to build up business in Germany and the UK, and later France, Italy, and Spain, bringing together a central project team based in Germany together with local colleagues elsewhere. There is one in India, plus a corporation partner in Singapore.

Starting with just a couple of individuals, Q MISSION now has close to 20, and each of them averages 20 years’ experience in the industry, enabling the company to build a solid reputation for specialist knowledge. “They all speak the same language as our customers, which is quite an advantage,” says Hambach.

As for the company name, it evolved from a brainstorming session during which they asked themselves the simple question: What is important to us?

If you want to support the customer, Hambach says, you need to quickly understand what the customer needs. You need intelligence, or I.Q. That is really important. And you want to work with colleagues you really like, who can handle the workload. That makes E.Q., or emotional quotient, equally important.

But the Q also stands for the quality that they and their customers expect. So, bringing it all together they settled on the Q alone. It is also the name of a character in the James Bond 007 films. He is the inventor, who provides the technical solutions for the mission. “A ‘Q’ is inevitable for each mission,” Hambach enthuses.

The pandemic and the home working that it facilitated acted as a springboard for the business. Being set up in 2021 meant that everyone was still cautious. There were no face-to-face business meetings or dinners.

“This was one of the more complicated situations. It made it more difficult to build up trust,” says Hambach, and yet customers that were used to home office working also made the business efficiency-driven. No longer was it always necessary to go and meet the customer and spend days on site in their offices. They were happy to set up on a remote basis, and Q MISSION set up its team likewise.

Q Mission could also set up all of its IT and support infrastructures on its devices as cloud-managed remotely by a partner without a physical server. This brought huge benefits. “The Covid-time was not negative for us,” says Kiosoglou. The organisational base the founders established lent itself to a rapid ramp-up phase without a prolonged sales-side experience, assisted by a known network.

It was an advantage then, and it remains so today, they are keen to point out, not least because most of the leasing companies were built from the 1960s through to the 1980s, which means they require their support for processes that were implemented, but never digitised.

And today, the situation in the automotive financial services industry is “not relaxed,” says Hambach. It is business-critical, with a lot of cost-consciousness, but fortunately Q MISSION has carved out a niche role in the market that has few competitors.

Q MISSION is complementary to other consultancies, more specialist than IT, more focused than strategy consultancies – open to collaborations and add-ons, the co-owners state. No other competitor is doing exactly the same thing, they add. Other companies can do what they are doing, but on a more general level, they are not so specialised.

After growing by around 30% per year since its founding, Q MISSION is now focused on consolidating that progress and broadening awareness of its capabilities. “Our customers seem happy and are willing to recommend us, but in the transformation field Q MISSION is not yet the first company on everyone’s lips,” says Hambach. That may soon change. Next week, co-founders Wasilios Kiosoglou and Jochen Hambach will take the stage at the GlobalData Automotive Europe 2025 conference (15–16 October) to share their insights in a session titled “From Ownership to Access: Making Mobility as a Service Work at Scale.”