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Brian Michon INTERIM AND FRACTIONAL CTO
Product, Engineering and Platform Leadership
I help PE- and venture-backed companies stabilize technology leadership, align product and engineering with revenue commitments, and scale complex commerce, SaaS, and partner platforms.
Former CTO and CISO of Cartera Commerce, a Rakuten company, and former VP Engineering at Intuit. Experience spans affiliate and loyalty platforms, enterprise APIs, product and engineering leadership, cybersecurity and compliance, platform modernization, and AI product strategy and prototyping.
Capabilities
Interim CTO and CPTO LeadershipExecutive transition, organizational assessment, leadership alignment, and succession planning.
Product and Engineering ExecutionRoadmap validation, accountability, delivery metrics, customer commitments, and operating cadence.
Commerce and Partner PlatformsAffiliate commerce, loyalty, attribution, enterprise partnerships, offer platforms, and transaction integrity.
APIs and Complex IntegrationsPartner onboarding, canonical data models, API strategy, webhooks, reliability, and operational support.
AI Product Strategy and PrototypingConsumer experience strategy, agentic commerce concepts, AI-assisted development, and the APIs, data, security, and controls required to build reliable products.
Platform ModernizationLegacy architecture, cloud scale, observability, security, compliance, and incremental re-platforming.
Technical Diligence and M&ATeam, architecture, product, risk, acquisition readiness, and post-acquisition integration.
Product and Engineering ExecutionRoadmap validation, accountability, delivery metrics, customer commitments, and operating cadence.
Commerce and Partner PlatformsAffiliate commerce, loyalty, attribution, enterprise partnerships, offer platforms, and transaction integrity.
APIs and Complex IntegrationsPartner onboarding, canonical data models, API strategy, webhooks, reliability, and operational support.
AI Product Strategy and PrototypingConsumer experience strategy, agentic commerce concepts, AI-assisted development, and the APIs, data, security, and controls required to build reliable products.
Platform ModernizationLegacy architecture, cloud scale, observability, security, compliance, and incremental re-platforming.
Technical Diligence and M&ATeam, architecture, product, risk, acquisition readiness, and post-acquisition integration.
Expertise
Executive Experience
CTO and CISO, Cartera Commerce / Rakuten Affiliate commerce, loyalty, shopping rewards, card-linked offers, partner APIs, cybersecurity, and compliance.Vice President of Engineering, Abine Consumer privacy and security products.Vice President of Core Technologies, Linden Lab Large-scale virtual-world platform, developer infrastructure, and digital economy.Vice President of Engineering, Intuit Shared product platforms and an engineering organization of more than 180 people.Founder and Vice President of Engineering, Apps.com Consumer software startup acquired by Intuit.
SELECTED ADVISORY AND FRACTIONAL ENGAGEMENTS
- Slater Technology Fund: Advisor evaluating early-stage technology ventures for technical feasibility and market potential.
- HedgeBettor.com: HedgeBettor: Fractional CTO leadership across product architecture, sportsbook integrations, enterprise APIs, data flows, security, compliance boundaries, and partner delivery.
- Previous engagements:
- Kiwii: Advised on product strategy, browser-extension architecture, outsourced engineering, delivery planning, and practical adoption of AI-assisted development.
- The Echo Nest: Advised the CEO and CTO/founder on high-availability SaaS architecture and operations for an AI-powered music intelligence platform before its acquisition by Spotify. Blackbaud: Advised the SVP of Product and Marketing and worked with product and engineering teams to improve architecture and software delivery across 90 products on 20 platforms supporting nonprofit fundraising, CRM, finance, web, and payment use cases. Marathon Data Systems: Marathon Data Systems: Advised the CEO and helped re-architect ServiceCEO, a SaaS platform supporting CRM, estimating, scheduling, dispatch, billing, and mobile field-service operations. Marathon was acquired in 2012 and later became part of WorkWave.
THE FIRST 90 DAYS
Assess and Align
Align with the CEO, board, and executive leadership team. Evaluate product, engineering, architecture, roadmap credibility, customer and partner commitments, security, organizational capability, and immediate risks.
Stabilize Execution
Clarify ownership, establish operating metrics and delivery cadence, validate critical roadmaps, surface risks early, and restore confidence in customer, partner, and revenue commitments.
Execute and Transition
Deliver priority platform initiatives, strengthen the leadership structure, make organizational changes where required, and leave a durable operating model for either permanent conversion or a clean handoff.
Interested in working together?
Email me at brian@mitcto.com.