Akeneo Leadership

Prior to founding Akeneo, Fred was the e-commerce director at Smile, the largest open source system integrator in Europe. Since then, he has become a proven expert in e-business and open source having helped some of the largest retailers in the world (Chantelle, The North Face, Nestlé, Decathlon, etc.) build their e-commerce strategy.

When not leading the world’s most open and generally awesome PIM, Fred can be found exercising his passion for improv theater. And he loves David Bowie. Don’t say anything bad about David.

Prior to founding Akeneo, Benoit was the CTO for Smile, the largest open source system integrator in Europe.
He is an expert in complex web applications, having spent the last 5 years managing a team of 450+ open source developers and launching some of the largest European websites.

In his time outside the office, Benoit shares with us his passion of building and flying model airplanes in our park. We tried. Some of them are still stuck in the trees.

Prior to founding Akeneo, Nicolas was the technical manager for MyStore.ch, one of the largest private sales companies in Switzerland.
Nicolas has many years of experience and a deep understanding of how to handle large and complex catalogs. In addition, he has an extensive knowledge base in integrating e-commerce applications with third-party applications like ERPs.

Nicolas is also the master of the subtle arts of cooking exotic meals.

Mark joins with more than 25 years of leadership experience across the retail, e-commerce, and PIM industries. Prior to joining Akeneo, Holenstein held the position of COO at SaaS vendor Signavio, where he successfully scaled and optimized the Go-To-Market teams and strategy, both of which were instrumental in the company’s $1.2B sale to SAP in 2021.

Before joining Signavio, Holenstein spent ten years at Hybris, a market-leading omnichannel commerce platform, where he grew their market share across EMEA. After playing an instrumental role in Hybris’ sale to SAP in 2013, Holenstein stayed on to lead EMEA sales in the newly created SAP Hybris division. Through his leadership, he guided the division, later renamed SAP CX, to combined revenues of $1B while overseeing a team of more than 800 global employees.

Before joining Akeneo, Kristin Naragon was global go-to-market strategy leader for Adobe’s marketing automation offering.
She also brings many years of experience spearheading alliances, sales, strategy, product marketing, and go-to-market capacities for B2B tech companies, from high-growth startups to category defining major corporations. Kristin earned her MBA from Harvard Business School and an undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University. Outside of work, Kristin enjoys fitness and contributing back to the community with her husband and two kids.

Thierry Fortin is a financial executive with more than 15 years of experience managing corporate finance, audits, and mergers and acquisitions for high-tech companies.

Prior to joining Akeneo, Thierry served as a finance director at several NASDAQ listed software companies, including ANSYS, a leading simulation product engineering company. He began his career as an external financial auditor at Arthur Andersen.

As a Head of Human Resources, Estelle brings over 15 years of experience in talent development.
Before joining Akeneo, Estelle worked on recruitment, training, and skills management missions in consulting firms and start-ups.
She wishes to accompany Akeneo’s growth with development, well-being, inclusion, and diversity projects.
Passionate about reading, she can switch from Jane Austen to Richard Matheson while interested in Nicolas Tesla’s biography. As a child, she even wanted to be a librarian.

Ziggy, our little hydra, was born on February 9th, 2016.

When it came the time to baptize this little creature, we surveyed the Akeneo team and the answer was obvious: our beloved hydra would be named Ziggy, in memory of Ziggy Stardust, one of David Bowie’s alter egos.

Ziggy has become Akeneo’s official mascot pretty quickly and today, our community manager. She is the connection between Akeneo teams and our beloved community. She is traveling all around the world and spreading happiness wherever she goes. You can follow her on social media with #ziggythehydra and contribute to her adventures…

Oh, and yes, Ziggy is a she.