My career has always been rooted in designing software systems and technical architecture, with executive responsibility — CTO, CIO, CEO — following from that work. Scale and outcomes first, then the cases, then the full timeline.
Owning the technology, the product architecture and the engineering team.
Owning technology, data and the people who run them, at leadership-team and board level.
Leading a technology function or a product line that combines hardware, software and AI.
Permanent roles come first; interim and fractional also considered. A software architect who has also run the company as CEO. Discuss an executive role
The same capabilities that modern transformation and AI adoption depend on, each shown by work already done.
A platform I architected and governed for 25 years ran in 50,000+ retail locations across 14 countries. Systems at that scale only survive with disciplined architecture, release and support practices.
The caseCEO of a 200+ person company, de facto CIO of a public authority, interim CIO through a company's integration into an international alliance: accountable for results, not only for technology.
The caseAn 87.5% cut in a major marketplace's infrastructure cost — roughly €400,000 to €50,000 a month — while it scaled. The same discipline applies to deciding which AI workloads deserve the money they cost.
The caseA public authority's ERP core restored in 48 hours, then modernized over two years with a documented 30%+ efficiency gain while the institution kept operating — the pattern AI integration into existing systems also needs.
The caseThe security architecture of a national interbank payment system, and security layers that kept unauthorized administrators away from payroll and financial data. Deciding who and what may access sensitive data is the core of secure AI adoption.
The caseBrought in after an internal team had spent four months on a stalled ERP, and after senior engineers and consultancies had spent eight-plus months on a marketplace's scaling problem — and resolved both.
The caseOpen any case to read the situation, what I did, and the result.
In 1999 the retail sector was still running electronic cash registers. I saw that point of sale was about to become a software problem, not a hardware one, and few platforms available in my target markets could support the international, software-driven model I anticipated.
I architected the IPV5 platform from scratch — modular, touchscreen-native, Unicode-based, multi-currency, multi-tax and multi-country, with a hardware abstraction layer and internet-enabled replication — and founded the companies to commercialize it, trading as Yakuma POS. I held executive architectural authority over that same platform for 25 years, and secured co-branded OEM bundling agreements with two major European point-of-sale hardware manufacturers.
The platform reached 50,000+ retail locations across 14 countries, translated into seven languages. It was certified under IBM's "Store Proven" programme and won the IBM EMEA Innovation Award twice. Its intellectual property was acquired outright by German and Italian firms, and the architecture was later acquired by a multinational retail group. Twenty years after the first acquisition, the platform is still in commercial deployment.
A national legal-information publisher in Latin America had a flagship digital product four years past its delivery date. The business had public-sector contracts depending on it and had lost the confidence of its own teams.
Hired as VP of Technology, I redesigned the product's software architecture from the ground up and rebuilt execution discipline across product, engineering, commercial and operational teams. As that technical turnaround restored the business's credibility, I was promoted to Chief Executive Officer and took accountability for the whole company, working directly with public officials on contracts, delivery expectations and platform readiness.
The product launched within three months. As CEO I led 200+ employees, aligned technology with sales, operations and customer delivery, reduced costs and restored revenue growth.
A regional government's statutory mapping and geospatial authority — serving millions of residents and hundreds of thousands of public officials — lost its CIO suddenly. An 18-person internal IT team had been unable to regain control of the institution's ERP core for four months, and the institution could not pause operations while it was fixed.
I designed and implemented the technical fix that restored operational control of the stalled ERP core within 48 hours of engagement, and was then formally appointed Lead Software Architect and de facto CIO. Over the following two years I designed and implemented a custom modular ERP architecture, a geospatial data analytics platform, security layers preventing unauthorized administrator-level access to payroll and financial data, and digital-signature workflow automation that was pioneering in European public administration at the time.
A documented 30%+ efficiency improvement against internal KPIs, with the institution operating continuously throughout. I held the highest technical compensation tier at the institution, which required annual approval by the regional parliament under statutory caps.
One of Spain's major banks needed a security architecture for the country's new national instant interbank payment infrastructure — eventually adopted by every major participating bank and used by tens of millions of people. Multiple security models, including PKI and device-based certificates, had already been evaluated by teams across the participating banks, and none had produced a solution that was deployable and viable at national scale.
I designed a novel cryptographic validation model based on contextual parameters — temporal attributes, device-associated identifiers and transaction-specific variables — replacing the security architecture that had been under consideration. It was the only proposal that simultaneously met the security, performance and operability requirements of all the participating institutions.
The architecture was validated and adopted across the national payment network, enabling full interoperability between the participating banks. Years later it remains a structural component of the system.
One of Europe's largest online consumer marketplaces had hit structural scalability ceilings under real production load. Internal senior engineering teams and external specialized consultancies had already spent eight-plus months without producing a solution that operated reliably in production.
I redesigned the platform's core system layers — data-handling architecture, image and data compression, and the structural model for large-scale transactional and content data processing.
Infrastructure costs fell from roughly €400,000 to roughly €50,000 a month — an 87.5% reduction — while the platform moved from unstable behavior under load to sustained operational stability, going on to support 19 million monthly active users, 100 million listings a year and an estimated €2.5 billion in annual transaction volume.
A U.S. coffee roasting and retail chain needed revenue-processing and digital-ordering infrastructure that could keep pace as it expanded store by store, without disrupting operations at existing locations.
I authored and licensed the point-of-sale and ordering architecture that became the backbone of the chain's multi-location operations, and stayed engaged as lead technology consultant for close to 15 years as the business grew.
The chain scaled from 7 to 23 high-volume locations across two states, plus nationwide wholesale distribution, on infrastructure I continued to support and extend throughout.
Six of many engagements across 30+ years — selected here for scale and measurable outcome, among others.
Most recent first. Clients and employers are described rather than named, out of respect for confidentiality agreements.
Advising on product architecture, AI-enabled workflow design, enterprise adoption and platform scalability.
System architecture and product direction for integrated hardware–software platforms combining embedded systems, imaging pipelines and AI-based processing — for image validation, e-commerce authentication and medical software.
Architected a 3D-imaging platform with data pipelines suited to AI/ML training and regulatory traceability aligned with FDA medical-device software lifecycle standards. Primary inventor on a U.S. patent application for authenticating and securing digital images (filed 2025); 2025 Octane Tech Awards finalist, Best Emerging Disruptor.
Replaced a proof-of-concept that could not scale with a modular C++ firmware and device-control architecture for traceable device-manufacturing equipment.
Authored the technical evaluation framework for a senior-engineer reskilling and certification programme and evaluated 442+ senior engineers across about 30 cohorts — certification that governed deployment to mission-critical, SLA-bound environments in banking, telecommunications, energy and public administration.
Supermarkets and 24-hour gas stations had started selling cheap bread and pastry; the company needed new services to stay different.
Led the ERP deployment, telecommunications modernization, multi-office integration and governance redesign required for admission to the alliance.
Infrastructure cost cut by 87.5% while the platform scaled to 19 million monthly active users. Read the case.
Designed the cryptographic validation model adopted across the participating banks. Read the case.
Took over an EU-funded digital-jobs programme after more than 15 months without a working design and delivered the complete programme architecture within 15 days, with a 60–70% job-placement rate; the model became the reference for later national programmes. Later sole author of a city's IT academy framework — 1,500+ participants, about 80% placement — published by the OECD in 2023 as a European best practice in adult digital education.
Secure medical-image transmission, legally compliant electronic prescription with certified digital signature, and remote patient monitoring. In clinical use for about eight years, supporting 8,000+ patients and 250+ collaborating pharmacies.
Designed a national land-expropriation management system that embedded the World Bank's involuntary-resettlement policy (OP 4.12) as traceability and compensation controls in the architecture, coordinating government officials, auditors and legal experts.
Redesigned a flagship product four years late, launched it within three months, then led the company of 200+ employees as CEO. Read the case.
Technology leadership at board level, in a business where reliability and security are not optional.
Re-architected concurrency, session management, redundancy and failover when the platform hit its scalability ceiling — an 80%+ increase in concurrent call capacity and carrier-grade reliability. The company was later acquired by a pan-European communications group.
Restored a stalled ERP core in 48 hours, then built its replacement, a geospatial analytics platform and digital-signature workflows, with a documented 30%+ efficiency gain. Read the case.
Architected the platform in 1999, founded the companies that commercialized it, and governed its architecture for 25 years: 50,000+ retail locations in 14 countries, seven languages, OEM agreements with two major European point-of-sale hardware manufacturers, and two IBM EMEA Innovation Awards. Read the case.
Took part in its move from reselling products and minor services to building its own products.
Conceived and built hardware-integrated rehabilitation systems used in a Barcelona university hospital, later redistributed by the regional government to other public hospitals.
Awarded twice — 2001 (Palm Springs, USA) and 2002 (Milan, Italy) — for innovation in retail and point-of-sale systems.
IFEMA, International Trade Fair of Madrid, 2003 — recognizing technology exported to markets across Europe and beyond.
A public digital-education and employability program I designed and led was published by the OECD in 2023 as a European best practice in adult digital education.
Primary inventor on a U.S. patent application for a system that authenticates and secures digital images (filed 2025).
Invited expert panelist at the International Congress of Telework (Costa Rica, 2024); appointed to Expert Working Group #7 and co-author of The San Jose Declaration, submitted to Costa Rica's Parliament.
Octane Tech Awards 2025 finalist, for a U.S. medical-imaging technology company where I serve as CTO and chief architect.
Yes. Alexandre Conesa, known professionally as Alex Conesa, is a software architect and technology executive (Software Architect, CTO, CIO) based in Dallas, Texas, with more than 30 years designing mission-critical systems.
Permanent roles first, and also interim or fractional ones: CTO; CIO or Chief Digital Officer; head of technology or R&D. He is a software architect who has also run a company of 200+ people as CEO.
Hiring for a technology leadership role, building a product, or modernizing an established company — let's talk.