Franck Zerbib shares insights regarding his role as Chief Technology Officer for Akur8. Starting his career at IBM, then shifting to Google Cloud, Franck has an extensive professional background and shares why he chose to bring his technical leadership experience to Akur8. Excited to take on a new adventure, Franck is ready to make a tangible impact on Akur8's growth throughout 2024, and lead Akur8's team of highly talented individuals, united by a strong international culture. Together with his team, Franck will work towards Akur8's clear vision to ensuring seamless alignment of the product with the insurance sector, while consistently prioritizing Akur8's customers at the core of their endeavors.

What is your professional background?

I began my career at IBM, where I dedicated 18 years to a range of technical and sales management roles, progressing from specialist and architect to the position of director for large business units. 

I then joined Google Cloud to shape and actively contribute to the great acceleration of Google Cloud on its markets, especially in France, across all industries. I held diverse roles at Google, until I led the entire customer engineering organization in France. My team of engineers was focusing on assisting customers in infrastructure migration, application modernization (Cloud, Big Data, Machine Learning), and other digital transformation projects around the Google Cloud platform and Workspace collaborative suite. 

I joined Akur8 as CTO in 2023, transitioning to a more entrepreneurial journey to disrupt the insurance pricing sector with transparent AI. 

Why did you choose to bring your technical leadership experience to Akur8? 

I prioritize the human aspect in all my endeavors: this obviously had a key role in such a move. Having collaborated with Akur8 stakeholders in the past, I knew we shared the same values. This extended to my interactions with the different Akur8 teams, and was a vital requirement to me in helping to facilitate my decision.

I was eager to start a new adventure and take on a thrilling challenge in a rapidly expanding setting. Along this entrepreneurial journey, I will navigate various business and technical obstacles to make a tangible impact on Akur8’s growth. 

It is a unique opportunity to be deeply involved in diverse aspects of technology and business, enabling quicker decision-making, flexibility, and the opportunity to shape a company’s tech strategy from the ground up. It is a shift towards concrete leadership and innovation.

What’s special about this company? 

Akur8 has both incredibly solid foundations and a clear vision. Our product fits perfectly within the insurance field: it was born and shaped with the specificities of the industry in mind, and it effectively assists insurers in developing increasingly sophisticated and agile pricing processes. Our cloud-based solution was built from the ground up with Machine Learning and is supported by a modern tech stack, ensuring swift and targeted integration into pricing processes, both now and in the future.

Akur8’s team is definitely special too: the company nurtures highly talented individuals, united by a strong international culture that values initiative, collaboration, and mutual respect. Regardless of your background, you have a genuine opportunity to influence the company's future, fostering a remarkable level of engagement and accountability, with a focus on maximizing the value we provide to our customers.

Customers are indeed central to everything we do: in addition to being engaged through demos and pilots, we provide open channel to interact directly with Engineering, Product and Advanced Data Science teams who offer very strong business expertise.