The Context
At Kantar Retail Virtual Reality, I worked as CTO on an industry-leading VR product for FMCG suppliers and retailers.
The role sat exactly between software engineering and creative technology: real-time 3D, product data, retail research, client-facing workflows and the operational discipline required to deliver enterprise software. Kantar describes its work as combining behavioural data, expertise and technology platforms to help organisations understand how people think and act. The wider field of virtual store research uses simulated retail environments to test shopper behaviour, merchandising, packaging, pricing and promotional decisions before making changes in physical stores.
The Leadership
I led technical strategy across the business, built a large engineering team from the ground up, and held departmental budget responsibility. The team spanned the UK, US and Ukraine, so the work required clear technical direction, good hiring, mentoring, communication across time zones and enough hands-on engineering judgement to keep product decisions grounded.
This was not just about managing developers. It meant translating commercial and research goals into a product roadmap, choosing architectures that could support complex visualisation and data workflows, and helping the business make technical decisions with confidence.
What It Demonstrates
- CTO-level technical strategy and budget ownership
- Building and leading distributed engineering teams
- Product architecture for VR, retail research and client-facing software
- Communication between business stakeholders, researchers and engineers
- The ability to bridge creative technology with dependable software delivery