Octopus team

Yoann Guirimand, Business Development Manager

Yoann joined the Octopus team in 2010, in charge of the management of operations with clients. He Graduated from ISEN engineering school in Lille. After a first experience in lean management at GDF-SUEZ, he started as free-lance consultant and made various missions of capacity building in communication and fundraising for non-profit organizations in Chile, Togo, Benin and Burkina-Faso. In 2008 he assisted the launch of the microfinance and social business platform “ICMSE” in Bangladesh. Since joining the Octopus team, Yoann is in charge of leading all operatiosn with customers: commercial, implementations, trainings, support, community management

Mathieu Marion, Chief Technology Officer

Andrey Galkin, Chief Software Developer

Andrey graduated Appling Mathematics department of Kyrgyz National University and obtained master degree in this university 6 years ago too. Andrey started his career as software developer earlier. He has participated in different kind projects and this solid background allows him to be involved in Octopus project in 2008. Currently the oldest developer in not so big Octopus team and with team leader role. Andrey likes his project because this is very challenging to develop good software for microfinance area.

Pavel Bastov, Senior developer

Pavel graduated from the CS dept of the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University. Ever since Pavel has been developing software for the desktop as well for the web. For about 10 years now. He’s quite good at such programming languages as PHP, C#, JavaScript, and Python. What he really appreciates in the profession is the beauty of the cool hack and the turning of a complicated idea into a simple implementation. He’s been with Octopus for about 2 years now. Pavel was involved into developing frameworks: the reporting framework, the amount stringifier mini-framework, and the consolidation framework he’s working on now.

Evgeniy Abdukarimov, MIS training and implementation consultant

Aiday Dooranova, MIS Consultant

Aida Isabekova, Administrative assistant,

Munduzbek Subanov, Senior Developer,

Munduz graduated in 2005, from “Erciyes” university in Turkey with bachelor degree in Software Engineering. He worked in several software companies before coming to Octopus, in particular for Lizatec B.V. as a developer, IFC as a consultant, and Sinam as Senior developer. He has a good command of C# and Java and is interested in functional programming and mobile technologies. He is currently Senior Developer in the Octopus Project, where he likes the friendly atmosphere.

Daniiar Takyrbashev, Developer

Daniiar Graduatedfrom American University of Central Asia with Bachelor of Science degree in Software Engineering in 2011. He has experience in web – programming and strong understanding of statistics and data analysis. He Joined the Octopus team in July 2011.

Mikhail Titov, Developer

Artem Antuhov, Software Developer

Svetlana Khan, Software Developer,

Svetlana is currently Senior student at the American University of Central Asia, studying Software Engineering. She enjoys database development and dealing with Olympiad programming problems. She also likes “Database principal”, ”Database Design” and “Algorithms and Data Structures” courses. She did an internship in KMPG (consulting company from Big4), and developed a software application for time tracking for BPN (Business Professional Network – a microfinance company).

Louis Bidou, Business Developer

Louis Bidou is a student in Grenoble Graduate School of Business specialized in project management and marketing. In January 2011 he attended the exchange program of the MBA class in University of Stellenbosch (South Africa). During his stay he has the occasion to do consulting for micro entrepreneur in the Township of Kayeletisha. Involved in several associations and passionate about Social Business and Microfinance he joined the Octopus team as a Business developer in 2011.

Brahim Abdesslam, MIS Consultant,

Brahim joined the Octopus team in 2012. He graduated from EPITA in Paris, the leading engineering school in computing and information technologies. After graduating, he launched the interactive communication company MAECIA. Within three years, on a hyper-competitive market and with no prior reputation, he managed to raise the company to the third position on the French market in 2011 with clients such as Publicis, Pfizer, United Nations, and Disneyland Resort Paris. He arrived at this spectacular result by applying a combination of simple but effective approaches: simplifying communication with the client through the lean start-up techniques, fully optimizing cooperation and internal communication while reducing the costs, and finally paying special attention to quality. Since joining the Octopus team, Brahim structures the Octopus project and helps to implement the marketing and communication strategy.

Frédéric Roussel, ACTED Founder

Graduated from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences-Po), Frédéric travelled extensively in numerous countries. In 1989 he settled in Afghanistan where he worked for several International Organisations and assisted the launch of several local NGOs. As co-founder and Development Director of ACTED, Frédéric focuses on constructing integrated and sustainable regional strategies for the organisation’s activities in developing countries. He closely monitored ACTED’s microfinance programs since 1997, and he has played an essential role in the creation and development of the OXUS Group.

Michaël Knaute, CEO Octopus

Michael is the CEO of OXUS Development Network, which oversees the Octopus project. Michaël graduated from the Bordeaux School of Management in 1999 with a specialization in audit and finance. He started his career with Arthur Andersen in France. In 2003, he moved into the non-profit sector and joined ACTED where he acquired strong experience in the management of projects and organizations in crisis situations. In 2007, after being Finance Director in Afghanistan and Country Director in DRC, he became ACTED’s Regional Director for Africa. He then became Operations Director of MicroCred, a French microfinance operator. He joined the OXUS Group in October 2009 as Chief Executive Director of OXUS Development Network, where he leads the group’s development and supports ACTED and OXUS’ various microfinance initiatives.

Pierre Pezziardi, Octopus Founder

Before initiating Octopus, Pierre co-founded, OCTO Technology and IS University, foremost IT forum in France. Pierre is now CIO of Bred Banque Populaire. After Octopus, Pierre also took part of other microfinance ventures, such as Babyloan and is a regular speaking in conferences about microfinance and technologies.

Pierre is not only an entrepreneur but he is also author of several books about IS policies for companies dealing about lean management, agile methodologies, systems architecture and security.