Technology

Twenty years of building the systems, not just advising on them

Java standards, autonomous robotics, open-source process automation, financial AI and smart city infrastructure. The engineering record underneath the advisory work.

A rocket launch at dusk
Castor XML & NASA JPL

Advancing robotics and XML standards

Arnaud was a lead architect on Castor XML, an open-source framework that streamlined data exchange in Java-based enterprise applications. His work improved how Java objects were converted to XML, making large-scale data handling far more efficient, and Castor’s adoption across global Java applications reshaped structured data management.

That expertise extended to NASA JPL, where he contributed to autonomous robotics systems — refining machine-to-machine communication and data processing for advanced robotics.

An abstract network of connected nodes
Intalio BPMS

Revolutionising business process automation

Arnaud helped develop Intalio BPMS, one of the first cloud-based, open-source BPM platforms designed to simplify enterprise workflows. His work in model-driven development let business users and developers design, execute and optimise processes with minimal code.

Intalio’s success influenced how major platforms including Salesforce and SAP approached low-code and no-code automation — putting Arnaud at the front of a shift toward more accessible, flexible enterprise software.

An abstract render of flowing data
Fermat

AI-powered financial intelligence

At Fermat, Arnaud led business development for an AI-driven platform that changed how financial risk was analysed. Using AI for real-time predictive modelling and regulatory compliance, the platform automated fraud detection, anomaly detection and risk management.

The work demonstrated how AI could improve financial transparency and decision-making, and influenced the fintech and regtech solutions that followed.

An aerial view of a city at night
Surbana Jurong & Microsoft

Smart City in a Box

Arnaud was pivotal in designing Smart City in a Box across Asia Pacific on Microsoft Azure. Launched in 2016, it integrated applications for security, efficiency, sustainability and community into a single platform for city management.

Moving to Azure brought global deployment, scalability, disaster recovery and automatic updates, while predictive analytics and video analytics improved lift maintenance and surveillance. The collaboration drew on Surbana Jurong’s experience monitoring 24,000 lifts across Singapore’s public housing estates.

Why it matters now

Boards get advice from people who have shipped

Understanding how data, software and AI systems actually work — beyond the language of strategy decks — is what makes the difference between a plan that survives contact with an engineering team and one that does not.

It is also what made Vela Intelligence possible: an evidence-to-decision platform built on controlled workflows rather than fragile autonomous agents, where every finding links back to source material.

The Vela Intelligence platform: a finding traced back to the exact contract clause it came from
Next step

Building something at this intersection?

If you are designing the systems that will carry sustainability and AI decisions inside your organisation, that is the conversation I find most useful.