Meet Andreas Alexelis, CTO at AlpacaTech — Employee Interview Vol.1

Hello, we are the Human Resources team from AlpacaTech.

Last year, AlpacaTech took a new step forward with the spin-off of the company from AlpacaJapan. We will continue to develop our business to deliver sophisticated products that meet our clients’ high standards.

This time we are excited to introduce our CTO, Mr. Andreas Alexelis about what has changed since he became CTO of AlpacaTech and his future outlook!

Andreas Alexelis

AlpacaTech Co. Ltd. CTO / Head of Customer Interactions
Nara Institute of Science and Technology / Master in computer engineering
National Technical University of Athens / Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Developed his career as a seniorIT professional at Sumitomo Electric Information Systems Co. Ltd., Bizreach Co. Ltd. and Excite One Inc. After joining AlpacaJapan as VPoE in 2020, he has been managing and mentoring multicultural data scientist team members, allocating departmental resources for projects, communicating with clients about technical aspects of projects, and developing the business strategy.

— — — This is the first employee interview after the spin-off from AlpacaJapan, so we would like you to present AlpacaTech.

• AlpacaTech is an AI/ML technology startup company, operating in the fintech domain. It was established in July 2022, as a spin-off of the AI/ML technology-related business part of AlpacaJapan. Our headquarters are in Tokyo, Japan.
• We are doing research on the latest AI/ML technology applied in the domain of financial markets, combining classical quant approaches with deep learning, reinforcement learning etc. to achieve superior performance. AlpacaTech signals are continuously tested and proven in the actual market by institutional trading departments. Our customers are mainly financial institutions, most of them are also our partners and shareholders, so they are committed to see us succeed.
• We are a company of 34 members, consisting of data scientists and engineers, financial domain experts and analysts, as well as corporate functions specialists. The 21 of us who work in the technological department come from 12 countries, literally from all over the globe. The default language within the department is English.

— — — You became CTO effectively on October 21, 2022. What are the changes after you become the CTO?

• I became the CTO in October, after the company split, so my first priorities as CTO were to make and share a clear assessment of where we currently stood and take the immediate actions to stabilize our current projects. After stabilization was achieved, I started planning for the next phase, renegotiating contracts, reallocating resources and laying the foundation for a dynamic new start.

— — — What are your current roles/responsibilities?

• My current main roles are as CTO and head of the technical customer interactions team. I also serve as a member of the company BoD.
• My responsibilities are to execute the technical roadmap, to maintain and expand a world-class technical team, to represent the company from the technical aspect and to assist the CEO in executing the company’s business strategy

— — — What is the ideal CTO profile?

• When I was offered the position of CTO, I felt glad to know that I was having the trust of the management, but more than that I felt humbled by the support and the confidence shown to me by the members of the tech department.
• My ideal CTO profile has been largely influenced by the CTO of the first venture company that I have been working at, and by my predecessor CTO (and great friend) during the time of AlpacaJapan. Both of them were extremely talented as engineers, have very strong business sense, are true tech visionaries and projected an aura of true leadership that creates strong bonding with the engineers in their team.
• Me, on the other hand, I believe that my biggest strength is that I can recognize potential and talent in people, and I love assisting talented people reach their fullest potential by empowering them. Maybe it is because of this quality that I was able to develop a strong bond with my team. At the same time, I am lucky to have a ridiculously smart team, which makes facing the challenges so much easier. Having said that, I am committed to constantly improving my technical skills and learning the new advancements in technology, so that I can actively steer the department in the right direction and stay worthy of the team’s expectations as CTO

— — — You have been working as the Vice President of Enginnering at AlpacaJapan. Then, you moved to AlpacaTech. Only six months have passed since the company is split. How do you feel looking back over the past six months?

• The period that was available to prepare for the company split was short and the issues that had to be handled were many. Thanks to everybody’s effort, we managed to get the day-0 tasks done by the day of the split, but my greatest worry was that the uncertainty of the new situation would push the morale of the team down. Luckily that didn’t happen, the team stayed together and we entered a stabilization phase. There was however still the question of what future laid in front of us, as a company.
• Together with the members of the team, we tried to identify our strengths, our weaknesses, our core competences and our business opportunities, and little by little, the direction that we should be moving towards started to become visible. It was clear that we needed to consolidate our resources in the direction of our two areas of strength, short-term and long-term market predictions, while preparing for a third. Some legacy projects had to be wound down to release resources, others should be leveraged and knowhow should be transferred. Partnerships and synergies should be found, so that the team could concentrate on what it does best. After a consensus on the direction was achieved, I felt that we might actually have a chance to make it happen.
• We set out to work on the implementation and things started to move along. As all departments and all teams started to find their pace, I started to transition to my new role. I already had a game plan and some basic milestones of what needs doing, however the territory was new for me so I struggled a lot to keep a level judgment about what needs doing next. By the end of the year, I think that the foundation seems to have been somehow laid, although we are not completely out of the woods yet.
• Overall, I feel it was a challenging period but as it usually is with challenges, it was also an opportunity for growth.

— — — We see you have involved in a lot of things….

• Yes, it has been kind of hectic these days, in a way it is my fault because I did not plan a clean transition away from my previous roles: the position of VPoE, member of the dev team and product owner. Still some of the hands-on work in projects creeps on to my plate. Also, due to the small number of Japanese-speaking technical members, I need to take up additional roles out of a lack of options. Since these are mostly customer facing roles, they induce a lot of overhead and communication load, so concentrating on what really matters is challenging. Luckily everybody is very supportive, for which I am really grateful, so it kind of works. Recently, the situation is consistently improving.

— — — How do you blow off steam?

• I blow off steam by devoting discretional time to the things that I like: seeing my family, meeting with friends, practicing martial arts, going on short trips and cooking. Having switched largely to remote work allows me to take advantage of some odd time slots to push in some of these activities into my day-to-day schedule. I also enjoy talking with people and sharing some of the challenges I face with them, so in a way one part of my work helps balance the rest.

— — — What is your future prospects for AlpacaTech?

• AlpacaTech is still a tech startup in search of a sustainable business that will allow it to grow into a healthy, profitable company. Both the technology (Machine Learning) and the domain (financial sector) are promising, there is talent to research and discover underutilized value, what we call alpha, as well as partnerships to exploit it. However, it is in the nature of alpha to be transient: with the evolution of technology and the proliferation of knowledge, the competitive edge of yesterday becomes the commodity of today, and new alpha has to be seeked, in an endless cycle. I would like to contribute in AlpacaTech implementing a viable business model that will lead it to success.
• To achieve it’s mission, AlpacaTech must seek and strike partnerships with other players in the industry, companies that can leverage AlpacaTech’s knowhow and high execution skills to solve problems within the financial domain. AlpacaTech does research in the most cutting edge areas of AI/ML, however only by applying these methods to real world problems within the industry do these methods get validated and improved. Step by step, Alpaca will find it’s position as technology enabler in data-related financial businesses.
• At a personal level, I would like to do work that matters. We only live once, and we spend a big chunk of our lives working. It is really a pity if the work we do does not make a difference at all. “What matters”, of course, is highly subjective but aren’t most things in life subjective anyway? I think that if it honestly feels like it matters to someone, then it does matter. Work is not only about turning in deliverables, it is also about the actualization of one’s potential and the feeling of accomplishment that gets to be shared with the team and the rest of the world. I would like to contribute so that AlpacaTech is and stays a great place to work.

— — — What do you like at AlpacaTech?

• First of all I like the people. Although, from the first day I came in as VPoE, I have been working with the objective to form a tech team which is top-notch in the industry and I have first-hand knowledge of this team’s potential, it is still sort of a mystery to me how such a small size startup company manages to attract such talent from all over the world. It is not just skills, they are really great people to hang out with, both the tech members and the members of the other departments as well. I have learned so much from every one of them during the time I am here, and there is still so much I haven’t even started to touch yet.

— — — We agree with that! It’s so nice to have talented people from 12 different countries.

• Yes, then, it’s the culture. An international environment within Japan, which, from its inception, is really inclusive to all members of different circumstances. A relatively flat hierarchy, by design, with a high level of empowerment. Everybody feels free to debate the issues on their merits and members are not afraid to disagree, sometimes even strongly but also say “I am sorry, you are right” or “ok, let’s try it this way”. A strong feeling of appreciation for each other’s achievements and contributions and the trust that people work to the best of their abilities to move the situation forward. Of course, there are many areas that can take more improvement: process is kind of sloppy and sometimes gives way to speed, communication is at times somehow chaotic, and people often have to step out of their roles to get things done. I don’t consider these to be much of an issue right now but we should make sure we deal with them as we scale.
• Finally, I like the challenge. A small company that can have an edge on certain aspects of technology and provide enough value that allows it to occupy and hold a niche in the market, is definitely not easy, and there are no guarantees that it will succeed, but I think it is worth the effort. Also, since I was entrusted with the position of CTO, it presents an opportunity for me to challenge my own comfort zone by taking up on the challenge and giving it my best shot.

Thank you so much Andreas-san!

If you are interested in working with talented and passionate people in the diverse and inclusive environment, we have a great opportunity for you!

https://www.alpaca-tech.ai/jobs