Olivier Lajeunesse – CTO / CIO

Full ownership of the technology scope of a national group: very high-traffic web and mobile platforms, subscription system, internal IT and support.

• Rebuilt the architecture of the web and mobile platforms: traffic peaks absorbed, availability and performance monitored continuously
• Launched three international editions (French, English, Polish) on a shared technical foundation — one deployment to maintain instead of three
• Industrialised internal production pipelines: workflow automation and removal of repetitive manual work
• Shipped applied-AI pipelines where the gain is measurable: automated translation, semantic search across archives
• Rebuilt the mobile app in Flutter: a single iOS and Android codebase instead of two to keep alive
• Reduced technical debt and accelerated delivery cycles, without ever stopping production
• Owned the IT budget, vendors and technology partners: build vs buy decisions, contract renegotiation
• Managed multidisciplinary teams (web, mobile, subscriptions, IT & helpdesk) and reported directly to executive leadership

Ownership of the front-end scope of the group’s media platforms (L’Express, Libération), under heavy audience, performance and ad-revenue constraints. L’Express was part of the group at the time; I took over its technology leadership two years later.

• Optimised web performance on very high-traffic sites: load times, stability, a performance budget held over time
• Hired, managed and grew a front-end engineering team
• Defined technical standards: frameworks, conventions, quality criteria enforceable across projects
• Set up metrics-driven monitoring and coordination with back-end, product and ad-operations teams

Advised organisations on digitalisation and technology transformation initiatives.

• Audited business and technical needs, framed priorities
• Advised on technology choices and IT organisation
• Structured engineering teams and led change management

Led the technology function of a premium, international e-commerce platform.

• Stabilised and evolved the platform: performance, availability, ability to absorb commercial peaks
• Introduced technical KPI governance and vendor management
• Organised delivery and managed the engineering team

Built and ran the technology function of a fast-growing e-commerce company over seven years — from the storefront to the tools that keep the company running.

• Built and operated the e-commerce platform throughout the growth period, internationally
• Designed and shipped custom back-office tools: inventory, production, logistics, customer service
• Digitalised the retail network
• Made the structuring technology choices, prioritised investments, managed vendors
• Set up server, network and telephony infrastructure

Designed B2B software and mobile solutions for mission-critical field environments, where the tool has to work even when nothing else does.

• Built mobile applications with offline mode and an embedded database, before smartphones went mainstream
• Back-offices and extranets for large accounts: Suez Environnement, SPIE
• Technical documentation and application maintenance services

Internal progression over six years: support technician, supervisor, then operations manager. Where I learned commitment to results before I learned technology.

• Ran multi-channel technical support under SLA commitments
• Tracked quality and productivity, delivered client reporting
• Hired and onboarded team members