Linus is our CEO. With his eyes on the horizon, he helps our customers move forward
Solution Architect and one of the firts Optimizely Most Valuable Professionals
Epinova's CEO Linus Ekström has been in the game for a long time. He is one of the few OMVP.er (Optimizely Most Valuable Professional) and is passionate about quality, long-term thinking and reusability.
Tell us a little about your background
I studied computer engineering at KTH. I got into the university in an IT frenzy and came out after an IT crash. It was difficult to find a thesis job, but I was lucky enough to get into a small company in Akalla called Elektropost that later became first Episerver and then Optimizely.
Electropost
Elektropost was just rebuilding their CMS product and since they didn't have that many developers who knew .Net, I got the opportunity to jump on board and I became developer number three at Episerver. I worked as a developer for many years, but eventually became the team lead for the Frontend team. I have also helped with Commerce when it was a new product, to ensure that third-party components could be integrated with Episerver.
But you eventually wanted to move on?
After 13 years, I felt it was time to do something new. I wanted to get closer to the end customer and chose to go to the consulting industry. I started at a small consulting company for a few years and then worked at a large company in Vietnam. It was important for me to understand how the consulting industry works - I had a good grasp of the technology - but working close to the customer is quite different from working at a product company.
In 2018, I became CEO of Epinova
After two years, it was time to move back home and I was thinking about what to do. I could start my own business, it wouldn't have been a problem, but I like to work with others and to build things. So I looked at what kind of companies there are that I think are really good but that may not be in Sweden and the choice fell on Epinova, which I know from before. In August 2018, I became CEO of Epinova in Sweden with the goal of building a company on the right foundations and delivering really good solutions for our customers.
What would you say makes Epinova unique?
Epinova has a clear focus on Optimizely, which I think is very important. My experience is that the broader you try to be, the "thinner" you will become. You may know a lot of tools and techniques, but you'll never really get good at any of them. You'll never get those top solutions. So a company that specializes in Optimizely, well it really delivers the best solutions, which leads to satisfied customers, and employees.
Another important part is that all employees become shareholders, and that is of course a financial advantage, but I also want our employees to be involved in building the company. When you have fun at work, you stay longer and then you can build up longer customer relationships and it becomes a positive spiral. I am a big believer in cooperation and participation.
Automation and component thinking
What is also unique is our culture where we share knowledge and help each other on a completely different level than you do at many other companies. This is what our employees who start with us testify. We believe in working smart in everything we do and where reusability, automation and component thinking are at the very core of everything we do.
We have developed a framework that we have spent many hours on and are continuously developing. It includes a starter kit to build websites and e-commerce faster, but also many modules that we can work with centrally and that we can easily upgrade in our customer solutions that both provide a lower cost per customer, but above all a higher quality - so customers who work with us get value for money.Or "more bang for your buck!".
