January 2025
CEOs play a crucial role in steering the direction of an organization, from overseeing day-to-day operations to shaping its culture and defining its long-term vision. This unique position requires a blend of strategic thinking, leadership, and the ability to inspire teams to drive meaningful change. At Lumine, we are proud to partner with visionary leaders who are shaping the future of their industries and achieving remarkable milestones along the way.
In this latest edition of our CEO interview series, we sat down with Bruno Lacoste, CEO of Titan.ium. Titan.ium focuses on signaling, routing and security software trusted by eight of the world's top ten service providers, known for its commitment to innovation, flexibility, and customized solutions. Bruno shares his journey to the CEO role, his vision for Titan.ium’s future, and the strategies he’s implementing to lead the company through its next phase of growth.
In 2017, I felt ready for a new challenge after nearly a decade with the same company. I was already acquainted with Titan.ium and had a few conversations with their team. They were looking for someone in technical sales—a role I hadn’t explored before. It felt like a missing piece in my career puzzle, as I had experience in building, managing, and supporting but had never directly engaged in sales or customer persuasion. It was an opportunity to round out my skill set, so I decided to take a chance.
What truly sealed the decision for me was the team at Titan.ium. They were an experienced, high-energy group with a depth of expertise that was very appealing. Once I met them, the choice became clear, and I was eager to join.
Curiosity has been a constant driver in my career. I've embraced different roles across technical architecture, product management, and services, each bringing unique insights.
When I started in technical sales at Titan.ium, it was a classic David vs. Goliath scenario—we were the smaller player facing giants. This experience taught me the value of passion, agility, and expertise, shaping my approach to leadership. I aim to build a positive environment where people feel energized and motivated, building a culture that celebrates wins, big or small.
Transitioning into product management allowed me to use my frontline experiences to realign our company’s vision and values. Later, in maintenance and managed services, I focused on refining processes and supporting the team, especially during escalations. It reinforced the importance of strong discipline and a process-driven mindset.
Communication has been a critical element in my growth. Working across international teams and handling varied priorities taught me the importance of clear, empathetic communication—both internally and with customers. It’s about understanding their needs and aligning our actions to deliver value, which has been instrumental in my leadership journey.
A core lesson from my career is the importance of balancing customer and employee satisfaction. Sustainable success isn’t achievable if you only focus on one. It’s about maintaining healthy, long-term relationships on both fronts. I believe you can achieve remarkable results when people truly believe in what they’re working towards. That collective energy can make the impossible happen.
Another key lesson is embracing change rather than fearing risk. Avoiding mistakes can feel safer, but it also limits learning and growth. I’ve found that taking calculated risks, even if they lead to setbacks, opens up opportunities for improvement. Mistakes are invaluable learning moments, and there’s always a way to mitigate risks if you’re willing to adapt and find solutions.
What excites me most is the opportunity to build on our current strengths. We’re financially stable, which gives us the freedom to focus on refining our operations and exploring how we can do things better across the board. It’s a time of deep introspection—looking at every department to identify areas for improvement. This process can be challenging, as it often reveals things we may not want to see, but it’s crucial for long-term growth.
I am always encouraged, and grateful for, the engagement of our leadership team. They’re eager to collaborate on this journey of self-assessment, and it’s been great to see everyone rally around the goal of enhancing both our internal processes and customer satisfaction. It’s this collective effort that will help us take the company to the next level.
Our commitment to flexibility is anchored in our shift to cloud-native solutions, which brings automation and scalability to our portfolio. As our customers increasingly move to the cloud, we’re focused on leveraging these technologies to simplify and streamline their operations. The goal is to help them reduce manual tasks, improve resilience, and achieve cost savings through automation.
We’re evolving our services catalog to offer more customizable options. It’s like having a core set of building blocks that customers can easily tailor to meet their specific needs. This flexibility extends to our professional services as well, where we’re enabling teams to quickly adapt and develop bespoke solutions. By doing this, we empower our customers to solve their unique challenges more efficiently, ensuring they get the most value out of our offerings.
In the first year, one of my main priorities is to harness and enhance our inherent flexibility. We’ve always been adept at building custom solutions, but we’re now taking this a step further by launching a dedicated team. This team will be the bridge between our professional services and R&D teams, ensuring that customizations are seamlessly integrated into our product lines and services. The goal is to make customization an inherent part of our offerings, not a separate add-on.
We’re also rethinking our commercial models to better serve our diverse customer base. Instead of sticking to a single licensing model, we want to offer various options that cater to different business needs and markets. This work is already underway, and we expect to see significant progress in the coming quarters.
On the people side, our focus is on maximizing the talent we’ve built up over the years. With 172 employees and contractors, we have a wealth of expertise. Now, it’s about making sure everyone is in the right role to succeed. If we can align our people with the right opportunities, I’m confident we’ll see strong results.
Telco has a lot on its plate right now. The sector is undergoing massive transformation, driven by advancements like cloud-native technologies and the rise of AI. At the same time, security is a growing concern, as telco infrastructure now plays a critical role in supporting essential services for entire countries, from power grids to public utilities. The challenge lies in adopting new technologies while ensuring high resilience and robust security to protect against potential threats.
Titan.ium has always been a niche player, specializing in building adaptable, robust solutions. Our focus on customization and integration allows us to meet these evolving needs effectively. As telcos navigate this complex landscape, they will be looking for solutions to avoid vendor lock-in that may limit flexibility and have cost implications in the long-term. Our strength lies in creating true partnerships that allow for proactive support, innovation, collaboration and cost efficiency.
We see a tremendous opportunity to enhance our offerings through emerging technologies. One example is our work with Deutsche Telekom on the 5G Security Edge Protection Proxy (SEPP), which integrates seamlessly into their modern operational environment. By embracing GitOps, a model where infrastructure is managed as code, we’re able to offer maximum resilience and efficiency in rolling out changes, whether in software, configurations, or data.
AI also presents a huge opportunity. We’re currently exploring ways to embed AI within our solutions to enhance operational insights. Our software sits at the core of the network, giving us access to valuable data. By leveraging this data, we can help network managers predict issues, identify risks, suggest preventive actions and possibly self-heal. This proactive approach aims to improve network performance and provide a better overall experience for our customers.
Today, our goal is to build a culture that embraces change and innovation, ensuring sustainable growth for Titan.ium well into the future.
It all starts with mindset. We’re committed to promoting change and constant evolution, learning from our peers and customers, and I believe the best way to lead is by example. We’ve recently placed an emphasis across our teams to rethink processes, challenge the status quo, and continuously seek areas for improvement. This willingness to adapt and take risks is crucial for fostering a culture of innovation.
We also prioritize open dialogue and feedback. I’ve spent a lot of time on the road, meeting with both customers and employees to gather insights on what is working and what is not. From these discussions, we’ve compiled a list of improvement areas, and we’re now actively addressing them. It’s important to not only gather feedback but also act on it, demonstrating the value of change to our team.
My advice is to approach your career with openness and a willingness to self-reflect. Take a step back and assess what unique skills or perspectives you can bring to the table. It’s important to understand your strengths and acknowledge areas where you may need support. In fast-evolving industries, no one can solve every problem alone—you need to collaborate with others who can complement your abilities.
Surround yourself with people who have different skills and experiences and be ready to learn from them. By recognizing what you bring and what others can contribute, you’ll be better positioned to build a strong, cohesive team that can tackle challenges and drive success together.
Interested in learning more about life at Lumine? Whether you have questions about our acquisition philosophy or about a Lumine business, please get in touch to learn more.