A new chapter for me and Valiantys

When I was younger, I never imagined being a part of Valiantys.?

My father Francois Dussurget had started the company in 2006, and I understood nothing of what it was about. I had recently graduated from high school with a degree?in literature and history of art and had just joined university to study Chinese and economics. ?

I was very far from the world of IT services. In fact, I was very far from the world of business. That is, until I was told my parents wouldn’t pay my rent any longer, so I got a job working nights and weekends in the online gaming industry. There I worked my way through various roles, starting in customer services, then anti-money laundering, and compliance. ?

I loved it. Most of all, I loved the challenge of delivering more while working less – productive laziness! I found that I could automate much of my work so that I could work just half a day and meet the productivity targets to be in the top performer band. I would then spend the remaining half day researching how to automate my work even further, using templates and tools we would today call robotic process automation. ?

I would share these techniques and tools with my colleagues, and that got me promoted to management. Still, I thought the best way to advance my career was to get into IT. There I could have more impact by changing the dated systems the company used. ?

My company encouraged internal promotions, and although I felt very underqualified, I managed to get a secondment as a product manager, covering for someone on maternity leave. There, I worked with a team of hundreds of developers based in Toronto, who preferred to speak Russian or Ukrainian. But we had one language in common: Jira. Jira 3.13 to be precise.?

Jira allowed us to communicate, track our work, know who was working on what and where everything was at. I introduced Confluence to the company as a wiki that would allow us to share best practices across all teams, as I had done previously within my team. ?

That is when I turned to my dad and said: “I think I finally understand this Atlassian thing you do at Valiantys!” The reply: “Why don’t you come do this stuff with me?” After discussing with his cofounder Alexandre Alquier , I was in. ?

Valiantys wasn’t meant to be the leader in Atlassian that it is today. In 2012, it was a modest business of fewer than 20 people based in the south of France. But it had big ambitions and it had one North Star: unrelenting focus. That focus being Atlassian.?

This is even illustrated in our internal business process system, the nervous centre of the company (based on Jira of course), which we call Ostinato Rigore – a phrase from Leonardo Da Vinci meaning “stubborn rigour or tenacious application”.?

With this in mind, and armed with €30,000 in starting capital, my role began with trying out whether the model we had built in France could be successful in another country, starting with the UK. ?

Things worked out well, thanks to the trust of early clients like M&G and AXA XL, and in the first year we turned a profit.

This initial success gave us the confidence to turn Valiantys into an international firm, with a multinational culture and 100% dedicated to Atlassian. My role became about expanding our model to other countries from UK to Switzerland, Netherlands to the US, and so on.?

In 2018, I was asked to take over as CEO, while our cofounder Alexandre decided to focus solely on our sister company Elements. And I set the course for Valiantys to become the premier partner of Atlassian globally. At that time, we had about 100 colleagues and €40 million in revenues.?

Today, we are an organisation of 400, with revenues exceeding €200 million. We operate in 10 countries, have completed three acquisitions, won the Atlassian partner of the year award nine times, all while supplying the piping work to crucial business processes for many of the world’s biggest brands. We have a strong financial position, top-quality investors backing us, and remarkable growth.

With all of this momentum, it may come as a surprise to many that today I am announcing my decision to step out of my role as CEO of Valiantys, and instead support our growing team through a position on our Board.??

My decision to step back is not one related at all to the business, our strategy or our growth – all things I’m incredibly proud of and look forward to continue supporting.?

Some might think it comes from our investors – not at all, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with them and they provide fantastic backing to the business. They’re the best we could wish for.?

It all comes down to acknowledging what’s most important to me at the end of the day. And that’s my family.??

Some of you may remember my blog post from 2020 about the life and work lessons I learned during my four-year battle with cancer. In it, I mentioned that contemplating a real possibility of death provided me with an accelerated lesson in emotional maturity. I had a renewed appreciation for my time on earth, for the small moments and the people who truly meant more to me than I had ever realised.?

I have put my career first for the last 16 years, especially the last 11 years where I’ve given my all to Valiantys. But the time has come for me to take a long career break and to focus on matters closer to home. And it would be unfair to ask that Valiantys wait for me; that’s why I’ve decided to step back and, like our company values say, be mindful of what matters. ?

I am pleased to hand over the CEO role to Emmanuel Benoit , previously CEO of Valiantys North America. Emmanuel has been a strong partner and growth driver in our company for the past 5 years, taking our North American business from a fledgling startup to a regional leader. In the process, he’s forged strong relationships with our Atlassian stakeholders which will serve him well in this new role.?I am pleased that he will get to write his chapter of the Valiantys story, as I got to write mine. ?

For me, being a CEO was never an aspiration, in fact, I was quite apprehensive when I was asked to take on the role. I looked after this business for nearly five years and the way I see it, there’s no greater achievement for me as CEO than having worked myself out of a job. This will give room for others to grow too. As a leader, I find it so rewarding to see?the people on my team unlocking their full potential.?

There are several stories of this growth that come to mind. Like Nathan Chantrenne who joined us as junior consultant and is now our Group CTO, Marcus Hilliges who also joined as a junior consultant and is now our Director of Tools and Technology, Philip B. who joined us as sales person and now leads our DACH sales organisation, and Romain Pisani who joined as an intern and now heads our North American pre-sales team. Others have stayed with us to move on to greater jobs with our clients, partners and sometimes competitors, but seeing how being part of Valiantys for a part of their life has taken their career to new heights is fantastic to witness. ??

I have learned so much from the people I worked with. I sought to build a team of leaders who were all better at their jobs than I am, so that I could learn from them, and?be inspired to be a better leader by their example. This is also why I am confident that the show will go on and get even better. ?

Another thing I am particularly grateful for is Atlassian’s partnership. They created the opportunity we flourish on, and they took us for the ride. While I’ve spent a lot of time complaining to them about what they should do better, the reality is that they’re an awesome company to work with. Representing Valiantys on the Partner Council for the past 10 years allowed me to build strong relationships I am grateful for. I found the Atlassians I worked with to genuinely care about what they do, and even all these years and with 10,000+ employees, it feels like the partnership is even better than in the early days. ?

Today, I see Valiantys as a strong company poised to reach even greater highs. Not only does the company have great talent, it also has a strong financial outlook, the support of good investors, and a proven strategy to continue building on. So, while I will be missing being part of this team day to day, I will not worry?for them, and I look forward to cheering them on from the board. ?

Thank you to all the past and present Valiantys colleagues, clients, partners, and friends for your support, trust and loyalty through our journey together.