Clement PalleTechnology Leader

Liv-ex had worked with two trusted outsourced vendor partners for many years — they had built and managed the platform and knew it deeply. But as the business grew, over-dependency on external partners made commercial discussions increasingly challenging, and strategic knowledge and platform control sat outside the organisation. The decision to build an in-house core team was a strategic one: to retain knowledge, gain control, and create the commercial flexibility the business needed. It was a carefully managed, respectful transition — both teams worked in parallel through a structured knowledge transfer period, and the platform maintained 99.97% uptime throughout. Recruiting entirely through personal network rather than agencies allowed selection for the right skills, mindset and cultural fit from the start.

A business-critical pricing calculation ran as a stored procedure inside the Aurora transactional database, placing growing analytical load on a system supporting 24/7 global trading. I led the decision to move the logic into serverless AWS Lambda functions backed by DocumentDB, optimised Redshift and introduced S3 lifecycle policies. This removed significant analytical load and measurably improved platform responsiveness and web service latency.

In 2023, generative AI created simultaneous pressure on engineering productivity, data governance, platform security and competitive positioning. I established a C-suite AI forum, standardised tooling across engineering and business, and put GDPR-compliant DPAs in place with OpenAI and Anthropic. I also implemented Two-Factor Authentication via Auth0/Okta — framing it not just as a security initiative but a commercial one. Member organisations now require additional licensed seats, generating incremental ARR.