Q: You’ve worked as an entrepreneur, in an agency, in a consultancy and at a tech company. Why Valtech and why now?
Because of what Valtech does by default. It builds things. Plenty of firms are good at telling clients what should be built, but Valtech has always been comfortable making it, too.
AI just makes that matter more. The old lines between management consulting, technology consulting and digital agencies are fading, and clients don’t want strategy handed from team to team anymore. They want someone who can go from idea to working solution swiftly. Valtech has the scale and international reach to serve large enterprises, and it maintains the ability to move quickly and stay close to the problem. That combination is rare.
Q: You say that AI is changing everything. What does that actually mean?
I mean it’s changing how professional services themselves must work, not just what we sell. The time between an idea, a design and a working product is collapsing. That means the winners won’t be the firms with the most people. They’ll be the ones that can pull together the right expertise, technology, data and AI around a client’s problem, quickly.
In that world, being able to build fast isn’t just a delivery skill. It’s a strategic advantage.
Q: What are companies getting wrong?
Too many are stuck in pilot mode. The real question isn’t “where can we use AI?” It’s “why does this process exist at all? Why do we need seven handovers? Why does one decision need three layers of approval?” Automating a substandard process just makes it faster at being bad. The companies that pull ahead will redesign how they operate, build, serve customers and grow.
Q: What’s the opportunity in DACH?
It’s an incredibly sophisticated market. Some of the world’s strongest brands, industrial companies and technology-driven businesses are here, with deep expertise and a wealth of operational data. DACH doesn’t need to imitate Silicon Valley. It needs to pair its strengths in engineering, trust and quality with more speed and more entrepreneurial ambition.
The question I hear most from clients is how to turn the promise of AI into measurable business value. I see Valtech in the space between pure strategy consulting and pure technology implementation: helping clients find where the value is, then building and scaling it. Germany and Switzerland also need different approaches within one DACH strategy, with strong local relationships and the ability to bring in expertise from around the world.
Q: What do you want to build?
I want to build one DACH business, not a collection of country offices: a single ambitious team that clients call when they want to get from ambition to impact faster, with the local roots to win in both Germany and Switzerland. That means a Valtech where strategy and execution sit much closer together, with fewer handovers, less complexity and more ownership. And it means AI is both something we sell and something we run on, changing how we sell, deliver and organize.
The one thing I won’t touch is what makes Valtech special: its engineering DNA, its entrepreneurial mindset and its ability to build.
Q: How do you lead?
I stay close to clients and to delivery. Leadership shouldn’t put distance between you and the problem. I like people who challenge assumptions, mine included, because healthy challenge makes organizations stronger. I believe in speed: you can’t spend months perfecting an answer to a problem that will have changed by the time you implement it. And I think big but start practically, because transformation only counts once something changes for a customer, an employee or the business.
Great results come from multidisciplinary teams, not individual heroes.
Q: Last one. What should a client expect from Valtech DACH?
A partner who doesn’t hand over a recommendation and wish you luck. We’ll challenge you, build with you and stay until it works.
Clients are looking for partners who can truly help them make the shift from early-stage AI experimentation to enterprise level AI transformation and acceleration. Roger is a strong transformational leader who brings clients, technology, and people along together, and he joins us at exactly the right moment. We have strong momentum in DACH, and Roger will help our clients to go further, faster.
— Olivier Padiou, CEO, Valtech