Hello, I'm Cesar.
Details
- Professional CategoryProduct
- Location
- Years of Relevant Experience15-20 years
- Seniority LevelC-Suite
- Consulting Rate (Hourly)300
Headline
Chief Product Officer, Innovation expert
Experience
Chief Product Officer
42September 2023 - CurrentAs CPO at 42, I drive the vision and execution of 42Next, our most ambitious transformation yet — rebuilding the core of the 42 platform and experience from the ground up.
Leading the Product, Design, Pedagogy and Data teams, we collectively redefine how we deliver learning, scale our network, and empower students globally.
- Lead product strategy across cross-functional squads (pedagogy, infra, data, platform)
- Setup an product-led organization, Agile and in comprehensive domains
- Embody and diffuse the Product culture: value delivery, iterations of learning, fast deployment, high quality (clean code, robustnes...), exemplary inclusive design, innovation (extensively exploring AI applications and no-code tools)...
- Align user needs, business goals, and tech execution to deliver an extremely ambitious product with strong resource and timing constraints
- Co-govern a large-scale, user-centric, data-driven rebuild of the 42 ecosystem
- Introduce AI at the core of the system and as a pivotal tool in the pedagogy (LLM embedding into the experience, RAG agents, automation tools)
- Improve efficiency and processes with automations, no-code and generative AI use cases.
Chief Product & Technology Officer
CityscootAugust 2021 - August 2023As Chief Product & Technology Officer, I lead a team of around 30 people in Product, Data and Engineering.
Member of the reduced Executive Committee, we defined, setup and execute the complete transformation of Cityscoot toward profitability, lean operations and user centricity & technical excellence.
With all the Product team and the respective heads of Engineering and Data:
• Define collectively the strategic roadmap based on Data, User research and Business needs
• Handle budgets, staffing and partnerships
• Define the strategy and implement the refactoring and migration from an historic legacy in-house platform to a modern hybrid platform SaaS + in-house (homogenous technologies, cloud and managed Infractructure as Code, modern stack) focusing on high value tasks in-house and externalising the rest
• Setting up of a user centric culture and Product organisation around value, data/metrics and frugal testing & innovation
• Introduce Agile and Lean principles in everyday practices
• Focus on DevOps and testing (TDD) best practices
• Make Data the center of the company's decision process and promote concepts like Data Mesh and Data as a Product
• Improve team's expertise and exposure in Product, Data and Engineering topics
• Evangelized no-code and genAI tools company wide and particularly in the Product Team.
Outcomes:
• Scaled and consolidate user base with 10k rides per day in Paris only (+Milan, Nice, Turin...)
• Manage a fleet of 4k e-scooter (embedded hardware update, battery swapping, maintenance...)
• Improved customer support to best in class (9/10 feedback) using human and AI RAG agents (combined with NLU engine).
• Created full automation workflows for Operations, Marketing B2B and Customer Support using low/no-code tools (Zapier, Make.com, Node-red, N8N) and Supabase.
Other missions:
• In charge of sustainability evaluation, particularly for townhall's call for tenders
• Data Protection Officer at Cityscoot
Head of Product, Innovation Factory
AccorDecember 2019 - August 2021Accor is the leading Augmented Hospitality hotel group offering unique and meaningful experiences in 4900 hotels across 110 countries. With more than 35 iconic brands in all segments (from economy to luxe) like HotelF1, Ibis, Mercure, Pullman, Sofitel, Fairmont, Raffles...
The Innovation Factory explores and industrializes new digital products like a startup would, from ideation/insights (workshop facilitation, design thinking...) to production (prototypes, pre-products and running products). We serve our businesses: hotels (B2B) and guests (B2C), with a focus on final users, potential value and learning by testing through key results & metrics/data.
• Set up and led department of more than 16 people on 2 squads/teams in Dual-Track Agile (SCRUM/Kanban): developers, QA, UX designers, Scrum Master, PMs and POs...
• Implemented the product innovation strategy for Accor: roadmap, budget, resource allocation…
• Animated network and open innovation initiatives : POC with startups, partnerships with schools
• Launched 4 successful partnerships with GAFAM: Microsoft on Cognitive Services in hotel, Facebook on messaging, Google on voice, Amazon on smart devices in hotel.
Products and projects:
• Develop and released 5 full production-ready conversational products (NLU, NLP and bot automation) worldwide on all channels and platforms in one year with record time to market: Messenger, WhatsApp (one of the first 15 companies to launch a chatbot on WhatsApp), Mobile App & Website, Google Assistant, Alexa… With feature adoption rates above 40% and user satisfaction above 4/5.
• Developed a low-code shift management mobile app dividing hotel staff reporting time by 10 using low-code platforms (MS Power Platform, Node-red).
• Conceived an AI-powered cloud-based media and content management platform for hotels, reducing publication time by 3 and improving the UX with a co-design approach.
Product/Innovation Senior Manager - Coach
TotalMay 2016 - November 2018The Digital Industry team and the Booster are accelerators of innovative projects for the Total group Digital Transformation. The Booster supports all branches of the company with one key mission: to stimulate innovation and accelerate digitalisation and product culture shift coaching projects and colleagues, while synchronising with C-level.
• Facilitated & coached more than 150 workshops and projects in 2 years on Product culture, Lean Startup, UX & Design Thinking methodologies, Pitching, Prototyping... Emphasis on fast iteration, Agile and prototyping with real-life client/user feedback to ensure change management for Digital Transformation and new ways of working.
• Lead trainer, trained more than 500 employees on UX & design thinking, IoT development, Artificial Intelligence & machine learning, programming... Disrupting training & learning model: open, free and collaborative.
• In charge of the setup and animation of the Booster's marketing and internal communication. Launch and promotion, internal and external website, service reservation platform, newsletter, intranet networking group, social media management, participation at events (ex: Booth at CES 2018)....
Promoted 2 times in 4 years (average mobility time is 4-5 years): from Refining & Chemicals IT, to transversal Digital Industry, to Holding Digital Division.
Digital Transformation Industry Senior Manager
TotalMarch 2015 - May 2016Leading the Digital Transformation of Total on the Industrial vertical, the Digital Industry team defined new methods, ways of working and technologies that could increase yield and bring value to the group's industrial activities (while the IT department handles legacy use cases).
• Head of Startup Incubator (Open Innovation) "Usine 4.0" team, the first sectorial and multi-corporate incubator for the industry 4.0 (see links and press articles for more info). Successful launch of more than 10 Proof Of Concepts with incubated startups on Industry4.0 topics in less than 1.5 years, with a team of 6 people.
• Definition & implementation of the Digital Industry roadmap (alignment from operational to C-level) to lead the industrial assets & operations into the Digital Transformation of the Industry 4.0 (more info in links). For example:
- the first Mobility program, introducing mobile devices into the industrial activities, doubling efficiency and securing structured and reliable data to be used by the Data teams
- the digital twin initiative introducing the capacity to have un indistinguishable virtual copy of our assets to run simulation, integration, testing, monitoring, and maintenance
IT Program Manager
TotalApril 2013 - March 2014Total is a French multinational integrated oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world. A major energy player, which produces and markets fuels, natural gas and low-carbon electricity, with more than 100000 employees worldwide.
• Manager of a team of 3 IT project managers, evolving to product owners. Implemented the first SCRUM-like management at the IT department.
• Maintained portfolio of more than 10 B2B products (RUN).
• Successful launch and deployment of 2 new global multi-million projects (pointed as example of collaboration between IT & business) on refinery scheduling and blending optimisation software (BUILD).
• Founder and in charge of the awarded (Total RC Innovation Awards 2015) “Open Innovation Lab”, the first ever Digital Innovation Lab structure in Total.
Data & Simulation Engineer
VolvoAugust 2009 - March 2014Volvo Trucks is one of the largest heavy-duty truck brands in the world. Making vehicles that are sold and serviced in more than 130 countries all over the world with more than 50000 employees.
• Improved data analysis with statistical and probabilistic analysis tools, reducing team's modelling time from months to weeks.
• Developed new modelling tool (neural networks, hybrid mean value and dimensional models) and optimisation algorithms dramatically improving accuracy and expanding the range of what could be simulated...
• Led all Medium Duty (5 Liter engine for small trucks) simulation & testing activities, including development for western countries (EuroVIc, pPNLT…), emerging markets (EuroIII, EuroIV/BS4…) and real-life test bench testing.
9 collaborative patent proposal submitted on various topics: valve design, combustion strategies, heat recovery systems, control systems... with at least one publicly patented (see links).
Industry
- Education
- Manufacturing
- Oil, Gas, and Mining
- Technology, Information and Media
- Transportation, Logistics, Supply Chain and Storage
Specific Jurisdictions That I'm Qualified In or Can Cover
France: Île-de-France
Spain
Language(s)
- English
- French
- Spanish
Education
Ecole Centrale Paris
MastersElectronic & Automation EngineeringAugust 2006 - August 2009
Universidad Politecnica de Valencia
MastersIndustrial EngineeringAugust 2003 - August 2009
IFP School
MastersPowertrain EngineeringAugust 2009 - August 2010
Your Skills
product leadershipinnovationteam managementstrategyagileuxcoaching
Professional Interests
impactpeople growthbuild memorable experiencesincrease valueproduct & innovation cultureproduct innovation
I am interested in
- Career Opportunities
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