Pain, Passion, Profession: From Business Engineer to Global IT & Data CXO

(Voir ce lien pour la version française)

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual events, or actual organizations is purely coincidental.

When I look back on my journey, I still wonder how I ended up as a Global IT and Data Strategy executive, and the first thought that stares me in the face is plain old pain.

Not the fleeting kind remedied by a strong espresso or a Tylenol, but a persistent ache that has haunted every global transformation project I’ve ever led, with hundreds of stakeholders from every corner of the globe.

My career kicked off in the oil and gas industry as a junior instrumentation and control systems engineer, a discipline as foundational to building a manufacturing plant as a good punchline is to a clever joke. In this realm, every sensor, every actuator (valves, safety valves, and the like) is meticulously specified, then interconnected via cables, with signals zipping off to control systems (BPCS, SIS, DCS, SGS, you name it).

For the uninitiated, imagine your senses, your eyes, ears, skin, constantly on high alert, gathering every scrap of information from your surroundings. That, in essence, is what instrumentation does for a production plant. Control valves are your muscles executing your brain’s orders; safety valves are your immune system, springing into action at the slightest hint of danger; the control system is the brain itself, while the cables serve as nerves, channeling vital signals back and forth. It sounds almost poetic! Until you realize the creative thrill of designing such systems can quickly sour into the tedium of endless copy-pasting from paper specs to screen and from one screen to another. For a mind hungry for innovation, that repetitive slog felt a bit like watching genius wither on the vine.

The Hidden Costs of Copy-Paste: A Quandary for the Entrepreneurial Spirit

As the years marched on, I couldn’t help but wonder: why, in this era of dazzling technological marvels, were we still shackled by the archaic ritual of manually extracting data from countless PDFs? (and don't shout behind your screens telling me you are still doing it in 2025!)

Imagine all that brilliance wasted on copy/paste, on laboriously entering catalogs of instruments, valves, cables, cable trays, bolts, nuts… the list goes on.

You might say, “Just enter it once and reuse it, right?” But the reality was far more absurd. The dizzying array of inputs, outputs, technologies, and internal parts made any one-size-fits-all solution laughably impossible.

Then modern systems arrived, boasting shiny databases and pre-filled vendor catalogs, a fleeting glimmer of hope, like a mirage in the desert. Yet no sooner had we bid farewell to manual data entry than new headaches emerged: keeping vendor data current, maintaining a proper hierarchy, and seamlessly interconnecting modules. Minor glitches snowballed into full-blown crises (with only two engineers on user support, mind you), and the lack of meaningful metrics made planning as futile as trying to catch the wind.

Directors tried in vain to solve the puzzle, but the shared pain persisted like a bad sequel.

Bridging Two Castles: Speaking the Languages of Business and IT

The challenge wasn’t confined solely to manual data entry; it extended to the very heart of our organization: the disconnect between IT and business.

Later, as a process control engineer, I encountered the same recurring issues: manual data entry, inconsistent information across multiple platforms, disjointed systems, and a chronic shortage of metrics.

In many conversations with our IT teams, two things became abundantly clear:

• The lofty, high-level explanations from directors were either too abstract or completely lost in translation.

• I, oddly enough, had a knack for deciphering the nonsensical and translating the pain into measurable terms: quantifying wasted hours (and wasted money), identifying the root causes, and sketching out a plausible path forward.

I owe a good part of this uncanny ability to my formidable mother (a true “tiger mom”) who drilled into me that knowledge is the ultimate power. I still remember those long nights wrestling with AutoCAD on DOS and spending weekends immersed in C#, C++, and SQL, all while juggling high school and exam prep.

Little did I know, these early lessons were forging the skills that would later allow me to bridge a chasm as vast as that between two distinct castles: one of business, and the other of IT.

Navigating Cultural Complexities: When French and American Worlds Collide

If you thought technical challenges were enough, enter stage left: cultural complexities.

In our Paris office, American engineers, steeped in low-context communication, often found themselves adrift amid the nuanced, high-context expressions of their French counterparts. The French have a penchant for direct, principle-driven negative feedback, while Americans tend to cushion their critique with a healthy dose of practicality. As Erin Meyer illustrates in The Culture Map, this divergence can turn even routine feedback into a bewildering dance of misinterpretation; what one side sees as candid, the other may perceive as brutally blunt.

These cultural nuances transformed our technical discussions into intricate, cross-cultural negotiations. More often than not, I found myself not just acting as a translator between the languages of business and IT, but also as a mediator between two distinct cultural temperaments. A French engineer’s passionate tirade about system inefficiencies could leave our American colleagues momentarily stunned, missing the valuable insights hidden beneath the fervor.

Reframing the Dialogue: A Mission Born of Frustration

That day, I decided to seek an opportunity within the IT teams. I knew the pain too well, had some IT knowledge, loved the technical aspects of engineering, and, most importantly, possessed the ability to translate one language, the business into another: IT.

When I began my role in a local IT project, my first session with anyone, from infrastructure to network, IT security, flow opening, architecture, and cloud provisioning, would always start with the question: “Do you know our different business lines, what we produce, and who our clients are?” That simple query shocked almost everyone (except those with a business background) and set the tone for my mission: to explain the company’s mission, vision, value creation, and operational impact to as many IT engineers as possible.

When a ticket arose, say, a flow opening impacting a system, I would begin with, “Do you know this business line that does A and serves X customers in country Y, including industries C, D, and E? They’ve raised a ticket because this system isn’t working, impacting Z users and X clients.”

In that instant, our conversation shifted from abstract technical jargon to the very real world of customers and potential losses, an eye-opener that outshone every bit of fluffy corporate jargon.

From Pain to Profession: A Legacy Forged in Frustration and Innovation

Those heady days, when IT systems, data, and metrics were seen only as sources of business pain, propelled me into the world of global IT projects and sweeping transformation initiatives. I became obsessed with the idea of making business operations as pain-free as possible, optimizing processes, consolidating systems, and envisioning solutions that transcended immediate needs.

I learned to step into the business's shoes, to read between the lines of unspoken frustrations, and to anticipate needs years before they became glaringly obvious. A local initiative, when seen through the lens of global collaboration, revealed that our pains were not isolated incidents but shared burdens spanning divisions and geographies.

This relentless pursuit of solutions, transforming pain into progress, became my profession. Experiencing these challenges on the business side granted me an informational advantage. I saw problems from every conceivable angle and tested countless solutions until I found ones that worked. It was like building a massive database of trial and error, where each successful experiment evolved into a robust process, then a system, and finally a refined framework that continues to grow.

The Final Word: Transforming Pain into Purpose

Looking back on my journey, from the restless days of a junior engineer to my current role as a Global IT & Data CXO, I see that every moment of pain and frustration was not just a burden, but the raw material from which true innovation was forged. Every tedious copy-paste, every miscommunication, every cultural clash has been a stepping stone, guiding me to become more than just a problem solver: a bridge between disparate worlds.

In those early trials, I discovered that our challenges, be they clumsy systems or misunderstood directives, are the crucibles in which progress is refined. It is the interplay of pain and passion that births transformation. The hardships we endured were not mere obstacles; they were opportunities to learn, adapt, and build better solutions.

As I reflect on the years that have shaped my professional path, I am reminded that our legacy is defined not by the hardships we suffer, but by the courage with which we transform them into lasting change. The lessons learned from bridging technical, business, and cultural divides continue to fuel my drive for innovation and excellence.

I invite you, fellow CXOs, to revisit your own journeys. Embrace your pain as the catalyst for growth, channel your frustration into creative solutions, and let your passion guide you toward a future where inefficiency is transformed into opportunity. In doing so, you honor the journey that has made you who you are; a legacy where technical rigor meets a touch of literary wit, and where every challenge becomes a testament to our enduring capacity to create a better, more connected world.

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual events, or actual organizations is purely coincidental.

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