Olivier Dumon
Senior Vice President, Technology and Product Innovation
London, United Kingdom
'We help researchers, research leaders, librarians, funding bodies and government bodies, as well as hospitals, health authorities, medical schools and health professionals…the very people that are contributing to society in ways from which we can all benefit.'
I have been working in technology for 20 years in enterprise software, online collaboration tools, online advertising, consulting and e-commerce. In total, we operate many very successful products in Research and Health on a global scale.
I find that my current role is very special because of the people we serve. We help researchers, research leaders, librarians, funding bodies and government bodies, as well as hospitals, health authorities, medical schools and health professionals…the very people that are contributing to society in ways from which we can all benefit. Every time we launch a new feature or optimise an existing one, we improve their user-experience and contribute to their success. I like to think of us as the Sherpas of academic and corporate researchers, as well as all the health professionals in the world, helping them to advance knowledge further.
At Elsevier, we share a passion for an iterative, data-driven approach to develop our products. What it means is that we want evidence and data to drive our product roadmaps. This methodology calls for assigning metrics to our products and assess them through A/B testing (assigning a fraction of our users to the new feature) and deciding whether the new feature is performing better than the old one. As we launch new GenAI solutions at a rapid pace, this approach is even more relevant than ever before.
To conclude, I wanted to share what’s keeping me up at night, especially now, as I focus on Technology and Product Innovation: it is the people. I view the most important part of my job as attracting and retaining top talent. Throughout my career, what has always amazed me is the difference that one person can make. One person, one vision, one idea can change the trajectory of a product, or a business. If you are a super talented product manager, please join us to help researchers and health professionals make a better world.