Mission

Mission is a B2B global marketplace of senior software engineers supported by best in class engineering management practice via the Mission Platform.
Our 3000+ members are based in 40+ countries (350 when I started). We work with 40+ partners located mainly in LATAM, Africa, US and Asia.
Main achievements:
- Grew the network of senior Engineers by 400% in 18 months,
- Negotiated and signed 30+ partnerships in strategic markets globally,
- Built scalable processes in sourcing, vetting and matching candidates,
- Team management and leadership, starting from scratch, of exceptional people located in different continents,
- Collected data points at all steps of our processes giving us more visibility and predictability in our operations.

Vice President, Member Operations & Partnerships

Modern Canada

- Member of the leadership team (top 50 leader at GDI Integrated Facility Services),
- Built from scratch a new and innovative franchise model targeting secondary markets in Canada including the legal agreement, definition of the service offering, the creation of an operational manual, identification and design of territories, identification and selection of systems to use (CRM, pricing, e-commerce platform etc.), franchisee profiles, go-to-market strategy, sales & marketing strategies etc.,
- Defined the offer that includes janitorial services, specialty cleaning services and a store (online and retail) for cleaning supplies and equipment distribution,
- Identified opportunities to improve revenue growth,
- Opened and lead a pilot corporate unit located in Hamilton, On,
- Implementation of the first franchisees,
- P&L creation and ownership.

Director of Franchising

Encore Travel

Member of the Executive team. Mission: lead and scale operations.
Main tasks:
- Team management of travel agents, team leaders, project managers,
- Put in place and monitored customer service satisfaction and customer experience through SLAs and KPIs,
- Implemented, scaled and improved processes using agile and 6-Sigma methodologies: online booking tools, offline solutions, back office tools, email technology etc.,
- Defined the operational strategy and structure,
- Supported Sales & Account Management teams in pre-sales: worked on pricing and overall finance for new accounts,
- Supported Sales & Account Management teams with the implementation of new clients,
- Trained new clients: built documentation and provided online and in person trainings, 
- Managed P&L.

Director, Service Delivery

Areas of expertise : business development, marketing, international expansion, partnerships.

Strengths : entrepreneurship, ability to start from scratch, international experience and network, e-commerce, negotiation, help businesses scale and grow exponentially. 

Clients : LE CHEMISEUR® (fashion), Bungalo.com (holiday rental), Oyatis (hospitality), Simplenight (travel)

Start up Advisor

Egencia, an Expedia company

Expanding Egencia's online & offline presence in Europe, the Middle-East & Africa (EMEA) via the development of strategic partnerships : 
- Identify markets where a partner is needed,
- Build the business model,
- Identify, audit and negotiate a deal with local partners,
- Responsible for the partners'​ contracts and monthly financial flow, 
- Owner of the P&L, 
- Identify opportunities to improve revenue growth,
- Lead local account management and operations,
- Support global sales for the partners' markets,
- Responsible for the local service delivered: +80 employees,
- Business owner of the expansion project across the region.

Key achievement: In a couple of years, we built a scalable business model with a network in +25 countries across EMEA only (started from zero) and we significantly increased our global footprint and international competitiveness through the win of major global accounts representing more than 30% of the EMEA business volume.

Director, Global Partners Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA)

Built scalable operations via strategic partnerships in 6 European countries (Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden). Responsible for the P&L, the client satisfaction, the customer service teams and the Egencia offer in those markets.

Operations Manager New Countries

Carlson Wagonlit Travel

Lead the implemention of global clients in several countries in Europe or globally.

- Supported Sales during the sales processes,
- Collected data and information once therom the Sales and Account Management teams once the agreement is signed,
- Built the team of people who will be involved in the implementation process including Country Leaders,
- Built the project plan with roles and responsibilities,
- Coordinated actions and timelines per market as per agreement,
- Sat weekly reviews with the Key Stakeholders: internally and on the client side.

International Project Manager

Managed the EMEA operations of global multinational clients, led a team of 40 persons. 3 direct reports: 1 project manager and 2 customer service supervisors.
Implemented the clients: conducted gap analysis in each market, identified requirements and specificities to make sure the Saas solution (online booking tool) meets the clients expectations and matches the contractual agreement.

eCenter Operations Manager Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA)

With over 15 years of extensive experience in business development, negotiation, international expansion, strategic partnerships and leadership, I have honed my skills in customer service and business operations. Leveraging data and technology, I specialize in solving complex business challenges, designing impactful and scalable processes, and delivering key outcomes that drive growth and value.

Currently serving as the Vice President of Member Acquisition and Partnerships at Mission, a global market network of senior software engineers supported by best-in-class engineering management practices, I have achieved remarkable milestones. In my tenure, I propelled the network of senior engineers by an astounding 400% in just 18 months. I successfully negotiated and closed 30+ strategic partnerships in key markets worldwide. I established scalable processes for candidate sourcing, vetting, and matching, fostering efficient operations. Moreover, I led a geographically diverse team of exceptional individuals, fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration.

My expertise lies in scaling businesses from inception to generating revenue in the hundreds of millions. I prioritize customer-centric approaches in all aspects of my work, adeptly defining and executing ambitious plans even with limited resources. Data-driven decision-making is my forte, as I rely on analytics while also trusting my intuition.

I possess a unique ability to align, lead, and develop world-class teams, valuing team success over individual achievements. Transparency, meaningful communication, and the art of storytelling are integral to my leadership style, inspiring and motivating others. Continuous learning is my mantra, as I consistently strive to educate, improve, and motivate myself. I maintain composure in challenging situations and prioritize high-quality decision-making to drive organizational success. 

Let's connect and explore opportunities to collaborate and drive unparalleled growth together.

I find pleasure in meeting individuals and learning about their unique perspectives. If you're interested in discussing new business, scalability, or…. tennis and travels, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Stéphane Bâlon

Deloitte Technology Fast 50 2023.

Mission is a private network of 3500+ senior-level software engineers & product builders supported by a powerful insights platform.

With our automated vetting and matching engine, Mission supplies the right people right away, no growing pains, no outsourcing, no long term commitment required. Our platform plugs into the tools that dev teams use to build software, gathering key metrics for our members, both as individuals and as a unit. This data gives a clear-eyed view into real-world activity in a member’s day-to-day flow of work, to guide and help level them up, as well as drive better results.

CTO & Co-Founder

FounderFuel

Mentor

Breather

Breather was a network of private, flexible workspaces that could be rented by the hour, day or even week. Each space is curated for relaxation, innovation, and productivity with our creative design. Perfect for off-sites, team meetings, interviews, training sessions, flex conference space, and more.

Breather had 500+ spaces across the US, Canada, and Europe. Business customers include Facebook, Uber, Apple, Airbnb, Ubisoft, Salesforce, Twitter. The company raised $70M in funding from Valar and Menlo Ventures.

• Responsible for leading the development & design of the core consumer applications;
• Restructured the engineering & product department into Agile/SCRUM squads (40 people), resulting in predictable software deliveries, better product focus, and quality;
• Shipped complex product initiatives between Marketing, Sales, Customer Care and Engineering, such as an access system to unlock doors from our apps and an internal application to manage our fleet of service workers;
• Award: Best iOS Mobile App of the Year 2016 (Apple)

Director of Engineering

Yellow Pages / Pages Jaunes – Canada

“YP Dine” was a consumer mobile application and service in the restaurant business, to competition with Yelp, Foursquare, and Zomato in Canada. 

• Responsible for building a new product team with a significant budget as part of the digital transformation strategy of the company;
• Developed the whole product concept and brought the application to market in only 18 months;
• Shipped two mobile apps and a complete backend (authoring system, recommendation engine, booking and food ordering engine);
• Award: Featured on the iOS App Store in June 2015

Director of Product & Engineering

Wherecloud Inc.

One of the first mobile development agencies in Montreal with a focus on design excellence. Under my direction, we shipped 40 apps for iOS and Android and released 200+ updates. Our clients included: Yellow Pages Canada, National Film Board of Canada, Ubisoft, Metro and Volvo Canada.

• Hired and trained a team of 15 people from the ground up (software engineers, interns, designers, contractors and remote workers);
• Built the software and design process of the company;
• Reduced the cost of application development through internal tools and technologies;
• Shipped an in-house real-time analytics and CRM SaaS platform (Ballista) sold to our clients
• Released an Open-Source SDK for building iOS apps (AppCoreKit);
• Our apps received multiple awards and were featured on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Xtranormal

Xtranormal was an innovative 3D authoring software designed to ease the creation of short movies for the masses, using AI and NLP. Shipped a “text-to-movie” GPU-based rendering cloud platform, a web application and a native desktop application for Windows and macOS. The service attracted 2 million users per month and received a DEMOgod award in 2008.

• Collaborated with product management, designers and CTO in assessing product features and defining development strategy and processes;
• Managed 40 engineers to architect and ship product features, user interfaces, tools, front-end & back-end technologies; managing projects with the SCRUM methodology;
• Managed the architecture and implementation of a custom GPU-cluster and assets pipeline;
• Managed QA department to obtain feedback on the quality of the developed software;
• Ownership of two patents about “Rendering Farm Design” and “User Interface Paradigms”.

In-Fusio

IN-FUSIO was a mobile gaming service and “app store” for carriers—first on market to provide downloadable & connected games in 2001. The service was successfully deployed in 25 countries across Europe and China, and was used by 20+ million players.

• Designed the architecture of an information system and production pipeline to support game management and distribution;
• Shipped a high-performance, scalable game provisioning and real-time online multiplayer system;
• Transformed our system into a full “Service-Oriented” platform and Open API;
• Expert and coach in object-oriented design and associated technologies including Java J2SE, J2ME, J2EE, Ruby on Rails, Python, Unix/Solaris/Linux and UML;
• Participated in the patent policy of the company;

Software Architect

Senior Software Engineer

Kalisto Entertainment

Kalisto Entertainment was one of the biggest French video game development in the 90s with about 400 employes. 

* Core engineer on "4 Wheel Thunder" — a real-time 3D racing car video game simulation for SEGA Dreamcast console. 
* Published by Midway USA in early 2000. Very well received in US and Europe.

Game Developer

Senior product & engineering leader with 20 years of international experience in building innovative consumer software products in diverse industries (video games, computer graphics, media, consulting, tech start-ups).

Known for getting the job done and delivering highly technical products in fast-paced companies. Excel at translating product vision into practical designs & solutions and executing on the company strategy. Strong experience leading & mentoring teams of software engineers and product designers in both startups and corporate environments.

→ Since 2018, co-founder of Mission. We help companies deliver value by building strong leadership, smart methodology and empowered teams. Mission is a private network that provides actively managed, agile teams-as-a-service.

Specialities: Technical Strategy & Leadership, Interactive User Experience, Engineering Management, Product Management, Project Management, Product Design, Prototyping, Design Sprints, Mobile Development, iOS, Software Architecture, Software Development, Agile/SCRUM Process, SDLC, Technology Audit & Assessment, Team Management, Hiring, Coaching, Mentoring, Entrepreneurship, Start-ups.

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Stéphane Bâlon

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