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Warship command
Engineering command

Warship captain turned CTO. Builder, tech entrepreneur, mentor.

I spent 13 years as a naval officer, including 30 months commanding a warship with a crew of 20. The navy taught me how to lead under pressure, make decisions with incomplete information, and build things that hold up when conditions get rough.

Then I brought that mindset to tech and entrepreneurship.

Today I'm CTO at Omilia, where I lead a team of 200 engineers building conversational AI for Fortune 500 enterprises. The work sits across cloud infrastructure, AI, and heavily regulated industries, where there is little room for mistakes and speed still matters.

I've founded companies and built products from zero to revenue. I've hired, fired, restructured, and scaled teams across several continents. I spend my time on the things many leaders avoid: root cause analysis, honest post mortems, transparent appraisals, hard conversations, fast pivots, and decisions backed by data rather than ego.

These days almost anyone can build almost anything. What is rare is judgement: knowing which problems are worth solving and which to leave alone. That is where I try to spend my energy.

I write about leadership, enterprise AI, and the skills that are hard to build but matter for everyone.

I'm always happy to talk about AI, innovation, or a hard problem that needs solving.

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Role
CTO, Omilia
Also
Founder & CEO, HelloWorld PC
Based in
Athens, Greece
Navy
13 years, warship captain
Writes
The Warship CTO

Career history

The full path from the Hellenic Naval Academy to the CTO seat. Every role, in detail.

Omilia

Jul 2025 – Present · 1 yr 3 mos

Chief Technology Officer

Jul 2025 – Present · Athens, Greece

  • Leading Omilia’s shift to a genuinely AI-native organisation across all core technology divisions (Engineering, Research, and Quality Assurance), rethinking how enterprise software is built, deployed, and scaled with AI.
  • AI-Driven Engineering Transformation: driving the adoption of AI-assisted coding practices and autonomous deployment pipelines to dramatically reduce development cycles, increase velocity and quality, and free the engineering teams to do their best work.
  • Cloud-Native Platform Re-Architecture: leading a fundamental redesign of the cloud infrastructure for elastic scalability, simplified containerised deployment across global locations, and tighter control over infra cost, with security and compliance by design.
  • End-to-End AI Integration: embedding AI throughout the product stack, from infrastructure to interface, so every component uses intelligent behaviour, contextual understanding, and learning.
  • Architecting the next generation of conversational AI: orchestrating the transition to agentic, AI-first systems that go beyond chatbots to truly conversational, context-aware, and autonomous interactions across the contact center landscape.

Director of AI Strategy and Implementation

Apr 2025 – Jun 2025 · 3 mos · Athens, Greece

  • Drove the company’s transition into the new era of AI-driven technologies, building on Omilia’s global leadership in conversational AI.
  • Led initiatives to replace legacy systems, adopt modern AI tooling, and raise productivity across platform and delivery teams.
  • Led the strategic design and development of the next-generation, AI-first, agentic conversational technologies.
  • Transformed the internal tech organisation to align with the emerging AI paradigm.

SearchX

May 2023 – Present · 3 yrs 1 mo

Co-Founder & CTO

May 2023 – Present · 3 yrs 1 mo

  • Co-founded SearchX, an AI-powered search engine for e-commerce, owning the technical vision and architecture.
  • Building the product and engineering foundations from the ground up, from search relevance and AI models to platform and infrastructure.
  • Building AI-native search: semantic and vector retrieval, natural-language and conversational queries, and learning-to-rank that adapts relevance to each storefront.
  • Exposing the engine through the Model Context Protocol (MCP) so AI agents and assistants can query a store catalogue and act on it directly.
  • Pushing into more exotic territory: multimodal image and voice search, agentic shopping flows, RAG over product data, and personalisation that sharpens with every interaction.

HelloWorld PC

Nov 2020 – Present · 5 yrs 8 mos

Founder, Leader and Entrepreneur

Nov 2020 – Present · Athens, Greece

  • Founded and led HelloWorld PC, a boutique AI and software firm delivering production-grade AI, web, and mobile systems for enterprise and scale-up clients.
  • Held full P&L and executive ownership, including company strategy, go-to-market, hiring, pricing, client acquisition, and delivery execution.
  • Acted as primary sales and pre-sales executive, leading enterprise discovery, solution architecture, commercial structuring, and contract negotiations.
  • Drove end-to-end AI product and platform development, from problem framing and data strategy to model selection, system architecture, deployment, and lifecycle operations.
  • Built and shipped AI systems in production (LLMs, speech/ASR, analytics, RAG, automation) with real constraints around reliability, latency, cost, and compliance.
  • Operated hands-on across modern cloud-native and AI stacks, bridging deep technical decisions with executive-level trade-offs and business outcomes.
  • Scaled and led cross-functional teams across AI, engineering, product, and UX, balancing speed, quality, and long-term platform sustainability.
  • Partnered directly with customers’ senior stakeholders (CEO, CAIO, CTO, CIO), translating advanced AI capabilities into measurable business value.

Omilia – Conversational Intelligence

Jul 2017 – Nov 2020 · 3 yrs 5 mos

Director of Web Development

Jul 2019 – Nov 2020 · 1 yr 5 mos · Athens, Greece

  • Owned the web development function end to end: platform architecture, team performance, delivery roadmap, and technical strategy across on-premises and cloud deployments.
  • Expanded Omilia’s addressable market beyond contact centers into the food ordering domain, driving frontend and backend integration that unlocked a new revenue vertical.
  • Defined and enforced architectural standards and engineering practices that became the foundation for Omilia’s scalable web platform as the company grew.
  • Partnered with product and sales leadership to align platform capabilities with enterprise client requirements across global markets.

Engineering Manager, Web Development

Jul 2018 – Jun 2019 · 1 yr · Athens, Greece

  • Transitioned from IC to people leadership, building and managing the web development team during a critical growth phase of the platform.
  • Established delivery processes, sprint cadences, and quality gates that enabled the team to ship reliably while scaling headcount.
  • Drove hiring and onboarding of web engineers, setting technical bars and mentoring junior developers into independent contributors.
  • Coordinated cross-functional delivery across frontend, backend, and infrastructure teams to support Omilia’s expanding product suite.

Full-Stack Web Developer

Jul 2017 – Jun 2018 · 1 yr · Athens, Greece

  • Joined as one of the first two product team members, building core platform components from the ground up for both on-premises and cloud environments.
  • Delivered features across the full stack (frontend interfaces, backend services, and integration layers) in a fast-moving, greenfield environment.
  • Made early architectural decisions that shaped the platform’s technical direction, balancing rapid delivery with long-term scalability.

Aline Consulting Oy

Jun 2016 – Jul 2017 · 1 yr 2 mos

VP of Engineering

Jun 2016 – Jul 2017 · 1 yr 2 mos · Palo Alto, USA

  • Joined as a founding engineer and rapidly scaled the function into a global software engineering organisation, owning the technical vision, team structure, and delivery capability end-to-end.
  • Architected and operationalised the engineering org from zero, defining hiring pipelines, career frameworks, engineering standards, and cross-border operating models that enabled sustainable scale.
  • Owned all architecture and technology strategy decisions, ensuring platform choices and system designs aligned with business objectives, client SLAs, and long-term product scalability.
  • Built and led a high-performing, geographically distributed engineering team, personally recruiting, mentoring, and developing talent from junior IC to senior engineer.
  • Established engineering governance including delivery workflows, code quality standards, and architectural review processes, balancing velocity with maintainability as complexity grew.
  • Created an engineering culture rooted in autonomy, collaboration, and continuous improvement, keeping attrition low and team engagement high across multiple geographies.

angularjs-recipes.com

May 2015 – Aug 2016 · 1 yr 4 mos

Open Source Web Developer

May 2015 – Aug 2016 · 1 yr 4 mos

  • Built and maintained an open-source educational platform focused on modern web technologies, designed and developed end-to-end as a side project.
  • Implemented the frontend using AngularJS and Material Design, prioritising usability, accessibility, and clean interaction patterns well ahead of mainstream adoption.
  • Actively collaborated with the developer community, sharing knowledge and contributions through open source and public engagement.
  • Initiated and helped organise the first AngularJS-focused tech meetup in Greece, fostering early adoption and community learning around modern frontend frameworks.
  • Self-funded the platform and related activities, demonstrating long-term commitment to technology, learning, and ecosystem building.

mist.io

Jun 2015 – Jun 2016 · 1 yr 1 mo

Full-stack Web Developer

Jun 2015 – Jun 2016 · 1 yr 1 mo

  • Joined an early-stage startup as one of the first technical contributors, operating in a high-ambiguity, high-ownership environment.
  • Built core components of a platform for managing heterogeneous infrastructures, developing frontend functionality (EmberJS) and backend APIs (Python).
  • Contributed across the full product surface, from infrastructure concepts and APIs to user-facing experiences and initial go-to-market assets.
  • Designed and implemented various landing pages, translating complex infrastructure capabilities into a clear, usable narrative.
  • Gained hands-on exposure to multi-vendor infrastructure management, early product-market exploration, and startup execution under real constraints.

Upwork

Jul 2007 – Aug 2015 · 8 yrs 2 mos

Freelance Full-stack Web Developer

Jul 2007 – Aug 2015 · 8 yrs 2 mos · Global

  • Built and ran a profitable international freelance practice while serving as an active-duty Naval Officer, delivering custom software solutions to clients across multiple countries.
  • Owned the full business lifecycle: client acquisition and self-promotion, requirements discovery, solution design, delivery, pricing, invoicing, and basic accounting.
  • Designed and developed end-to-end applications for international clients, adapting solutions to diverse business contexts and expectations.
  • Gained deep full-stack engineering experience across backend technologies (Java, PHP, Python, MySQL, PostgreSQL) and frontend frameworks (jQuery, KnockoutJS, BackboneJS, AngularJS).
  • Learned to operate autonomously under time pressure and strict constraints, building resilience, accountability, and a strong bias toward execution.

Hellenic Navy

Sep 2001 – Aug 2015 · 14 yrs

Hellenic Navy Officer and Captain

Sep 2001 – Aug 2015 · 14 yrs · Greece

  • Served as a commissioned Hellenic Navy Officer and Patrol Boat Captain, holding full command responsibility for a crew of ~20 over a continuous 30-month captaincy.
  • Accountable for mission execution, crew leadership, safety, and operational readiness under conditions of isolation, uncertainty, and sustained pressure.
  • Led complex operations using advanced naval command, control, and battle management systems (Thales), requiring rapid decision-making with incomplete information.
  • Developed early executive-level leadership discipline, including self-control, focus, judgment under stress, and responsibility for irreversible decisions.
  • Built the foundations of a leadership style balancing decisiveness with empathy, structure with adaptability, capabilities later applied in technology, entrepreneurship, and executive roles.

Education

  • Hellenic Naval Academy2001 – 2005
  • National Technical University of Athens