Curriculum vitae

Javier Ruiz Jiménez

Independent board advisor & investor · Exited SaaS founder · Cloud & SaaS transformation · Scaling & exit

Profile

Founded, scaled, and sold a B2B SaaS company: a platform managing €2 billion per year of renewable electricity across Europe, Africa, and America, acquired by a NASDAQ-listed multinational. Over 25 years of experience building and leading IT companies across Europe, America, and Southeast Asia, as founder, CEO, CIO, and board member.

Today I advise boards and CEOs on the decisions I have lived through as a founder, invest in tech-enabled B2B startups across Southeast Asia, and serve on the boards of two business communities in Malaysia. I also write candidly about what it takes to build, scale, and exit a company, for an audience of 34,000+ founders and operators.

What I bring to a board

Business model transformation. Led a consulting company’s rebuild into a B2B SaaS provider, moving on-premises clients to the cloud, and know what it demands of the company and of the founder.
Scaling. Grew a company from a single employee to 50+ engineers, expanding from Spain into European and American markets.
Exit and M&A. Prepared and completed the sale of a company to a public multinational, from the seller’s side of the table.
Enterprise contracts. Negotiated and retained contracts with multinationals including Enel, Acciona, Endesa, and Bankia, from a position of strength.
Governance and risk. Owned P&L, compliance, and board governance as CIO and board member. Experienced in technology risk: cloud, security, resilience, and disaster recovery.
Resilience. Survived the 2008 financial crisis and the loss of major contracts, the experience that later shaped the pivot to SaaS.
Cross-border leadership. Selling to, negotiating with, and building teams across Europe, the Americas, and Southeast Asia.

Board & Advisory Roles

Independent Board Advisor — A World Venture, 2026 – Present
Board Member — La French Tech Malaysia, 2026 – Present
Board Member — Malaysian Spanish Chamber of Commerce, 2025
Limited Partner — Indelible Ventures, 2024 – Present
Board Member — Tecsisa, 2013 – 2017

Experience

Founder & Independent Board Advisor at A World Venture

October 2026 – Present

Advises boards, founders, and CEOs on the decisions I’ve lived through as a founder — the business-model rebuilds, the scaling pains, the contracts, and the exit — and invests in the companies facing them.

On-premises to cloud/SaaS business model transformation.
Scaling engineering organizations from 10 to 50+ while keeping delivery quality.
Enterprise contract negotiation with multinationals.
Exit preparation and M&A from the seller’s side of the table.
Writing for 34,000+ founders and operators about the unglamorous reality of building companies.

Limited Partner at Indelible Ventures

June 2024 – Present

Invests in tech-enabled B2B startups across APAC.
Supports founders with global networks and experience to accelerate international scale.
Leverages 25+ years of operating experience to help portfolio companies avoid costly mistakes.

Founder & CEO at Awarala Inc., Malaysia (Acquired)

June 2022 – May 2025

Founded the company to provide technical leadership consulting for companies’ transition to the cloud and SaaS, then sold it:

Helped on-premises ISVs migrate to the cloud and develop SaaS solutions.
Advised leadership teams on increasing developer productivity and retention.
Helped founders translate complex technical decisions into boardroom-level business strategy.
Defined engineering best practices for building and maintaining cloud infrastructure using automation.

Senior DevOps Engineer at 47 Degrees (Acquired by Xebia), Spain

January 2022 – May 2022

Defined a DevSecOps professional services offering for automating cloud infrastructure.
Led a global observability platform for a pharmaceutical client.
Designed cloud risk mitigation strategies for the same client, improving compliance and reducing operational costs.

Founder & CEO at IT Wonder Lab, Spain

January 2018 – May 2022

Boutique cloud automation consultancy that grew into one of the most-read independent knowledge bases on Infrastructure as Code, with about 3,500 monthly readers and later an open-source repository of best practices.

Designed cloud risk mitigation and automation strategies for enterprises, including GSK.
Published open, practical guides used by thousands of engineers worldwide.
Recognized as HashiCorp Ambassador (2020).

Founder, CEO, CIO & Board Member at Tecsisa (Acquired by Asseco International), Spain

October 2001 – December 2017

Founded and bootstrapped the company as an IT services provider for SMEs, and in 2013 led its transformation, as CIO, into a B2B SaaS provider. Acquired by a NASDAQ-listed multinational.

Scale: started with one employee, grew to 40+ engineers by 2013 and 50+ afterwards, serving Enel, Endesa, Acciona, Caja Madrid/Bankia, HP, SAP, Capgemini, ESADE, and IE across Europe and North America.
Product: built a SaaS platform for renewable energy producers (production planning, smart metering, forecasting, market bidding) operating 24x7 and managing more than €2 billion per year across Europe, Africa, and America.
Transformation: convinced Enel, operating in 47 countries, to move a mission-critical, penalty-bound system from on-premises to the cloud. The migration completed in 2016 with zero downtime and became a foundation for Enel Group’s broader move to AWS.
Contracts: negotiated and retained multinational contracts with Enel, Acciona, Endesa, and Bankia.
Governance: owned P&L, compliance, and board governance.
Resilience: survived the 2008 financial crisis and the loss of major contracts, which shaped the pivot to SaaS.
Exit: successful sale to a public multinational.

Early Career, Spain

Web Developer, Lucent Technologies (Agere Systems, LSI Logic, Broadcom), October 2000 – August 2001. Web applications and internal tools for the world leader in communications semiconductors.
System Administrator, Independent Consulting, 1998 – October 2001. IT services for small companies and NGOs: infrastructure, cybersecurity, email, hosting, and customer support.
System Administrator, Spanish Youth Council (CJE), February 1996 – February 2000. Ran the IT infrastructure through the organization’s transition into a public body, negotiated a telecom master contract benefiting all member youth organizations in Spain, and represented CJE at international forums.

Education & Certifications

MSE, Master’s in Computer Science Engineering — U. Autónoma de Madrid, Spain, 1995 – 2001
Y Combinator Startup School — 2020
Migration Ambassador Foundations (Business) — 2022
AWS Partner Migration Programs and Resources

Languages

English — full professional
Spanish — native or bilingual

Selected Engagements

Client details are intentionally generic.

Renewable energy SaaS (2010–2022). Production planning, metering, and energy market bidding software for large renewable energy producers across Europe and the Americas. Led the move from bespoke on-premises systems to a multi-tenant, multi-region SaaS on AWS, with 24x7 monitoring and support.
Global observability platform for a pharmaceutical company (2022). Technical leadership for the migration from individual monitoring instances to a centralized observability platform, plus best practices for automating application observability.
Configuration management for a large bank (2008–2013). Defined the Git-based methodology, documentation, and training for a development organization of around 2,000 developers moving off legacy version control.

Clients

47 Degrees part of Xebia · AFS · Acciona · Aigües de Reus · Aula de Gestión · Bio Oils · Caja Madrid (Bankia) · Cap Gemini Ernst & Young · CCIB · CJCM · CJCV · CEU · Construmatica (Grupo Intercom) · Correos · Diaplan · ENEL Group · ESADE · Exact SW · EUFER · Endesa · GSK · HP · Instituto de Empresa · Lucent Technologies (Agere Systems) · JAL Armada Española · PSOE · Scouts de España · Syntonize · UNIR · Indeni

Speaking & Publications

Networking for Introverts — AWS User Group, 2026.
Catalyzing Growth: Bridging the Tech Startup Ecosystems of the EU and Asia — panel, Women in Tech APAC Summit @ MDX Summit 2025, powered by the Ministry of Digital and MDEC.
AI Powered Leadership: Shaping the Future of Business and Talent — organizer, Asia School of Business (ASB), 2025.
Future-Proofing Human Capital in the Digital Era — panel moderator, Summit of Titans, 2025.
Tips for Advancing Your IT Career — lightning talk, CNCF Meetup, 2024.
How Cloud and SaaS act as a catalyst for immense wealth creation — AWS Community Day Malaysia, 2023. Video
Improving ROI by Incorporating DevSecOps Best Practices — Xebia, 2022. Article
Dynamic Security Analysis in Terraform with Cloudrail — HashiTalks: Spain, 2021. Video
IT Wonder Lab (2018–2024) — free tutorials and best practices on cloud infrastructure automation, with source code; ~48,000 views per year.
HashiCorp Ambassador (2020) and Microsoft Azure Heroes Kudos (2020).