From Brand-Side CTO to Grebban: Andreas on Architecture, AI, and What Matters

Hi Andreas, and a warm welcome to Grebban! We are genuinely excited to have you on board. Let’s begin with the classic sports question: how does it feel to finally be here?

The excitement is mutual. I’ve followed Grebban since the start and, in recent years on the client side, I’ve had the privilege of working with Grebban as a partner. First as CTO at Safira, then as CTO at RoyalDesign Group. What has always stood out to me is the people: every interaction has been with kind, capable, and professional colleagues. Having the chance to work even more closely now feels especially rewarding. It’s also a remarkably exciting and transformative time with the rapid evolution of everything AI, and I’m looking forward to being part of it.

Before we dive deeper, let’s get a proper introduction. Can you walk us through your background, your career so far, and share a glimpse of your personal life and interests?

I’ve been interested in development from an early age and chose to step away from formal studies to pursue a freelance career in design and web development. My journey has taken me from freelancing, to a brief period as an employee at an agency peer to Grebban, to running my own development-focused agency with a strong emphasis on e-commerce, and later to working as a CTO on the client side within e-commerce. Beyond development itself, I’m equally interested in business, processes, people, and team dynamics, and I thrive in roles where I get to bridge these different areas.

I grew up in Norrköping, spent several formative professional years in Stockholm, and now live just outside Kalmar with my wife and two children in a former telephone exchange. The house has sparked an interest in building conservation, and outside of work my main passions are music and road cycling.

You have been part of, and led, some truly impressive e-commerce technology achievements. Can you tell us about a few of them, and why they stand out as moments you are especially proud of?

I’m very grateful for the projects I’ve had the opportunity to be part of so far. With full respect for the larger initiatives, I’d like to highlight three smaller, behind-the-scenes achievements that I’m particularly proud of. What they all have in common is that they were closely tied to the business, delivered with relatively modest resources, and resulted in significant cost savings, ultimately contributing to healthier margins. One of the more recent achievements I’m especially pleased with was developing an internal operating model for ongoing governance and management work on the client side, supported by dedicated tools. When there are many competing priorities and a limited budget to allocate across different areas, it’s crucial to have a shared framework for making the right decisions. This is particularly true in a landscape where growth at any cost is no longer a viable strategy.

A few years ago, we also built a simple yet purpose-built warehouse management system when it became clear that an external supplier would not be able to deliver on time. Within two weeks of deciding to develop it in-house, we had a first working version in place. The close collaboration between the development team and warehouse staff allowed us to implement an efficient workflow very quickly, and that proximity has been a key reason why the solution is still in use today. In a similar vein, I had the opportunity to help replace a returns management system under significant time pressure. Collaboration with the existing supplier had long been deemed ineffective, and rather than rushing into a new vendor agreement, we chose to build a lightweight MVP. Despite being “just” an MVP, it included critical functionality that had previously been described as impossible due to third-party limitations. Those limitations were resolved without difficulty within a matter of days, using the same third party that had earlier been cited as the blocker.

The excitement is mutual. I’ve followed Grebban since the start and, in recent years on the client side, I’ve had the privilege of working with Grebban as a supplier. What has always stood out to me is the people: every interaction has been with kind, capable, and professional colleagues. Having the chance to work even more closely now feels especially rewarding. It’s also a remarkably exciting and transformative time with the rapid evolution of everything AI, and I’m looking forward to being part of it.

As you mentioned, we’ve actually worked together before, although back then you were our client. What would you say sets Grebban apart from other vendors you’ve collaborated with? From your experience, what are our strongest “USPs”?

As a client, I’ve worked with Grebban in two different contexts, each with its own set of circumstances. The common denominator in both has been consistently high-quality design delivery. There is a deep understanding that runs from interpreting the brand all the way through to implementation, and the concept of digital flagship stores captures this particularly well. Having both design and implementation under one roof creates strong opportunities to streamline, and in many cases automate, processes and workflows. Ultimately, this leads to higher quality outcomes without necessarily requiring higher costs.

You have run agencies yourself in the past. What do you see as the biggest advantages of working within an agency compared to being in-house? What makes the agency world compelling to you?

I enjoy the pace and variety that come with agency work, and the opportunity to engage with clients who have very different needs and challenges. In the best cases, an agency can function as a natural extension of the in-house team, or, for a lean organisation, even operate as the in-house team itself. That kind of setup requires a strong relationship and a high level of trust, and that’s something I genuinely look forward to helping build. Agencies also bring broad experience from a wide range of contexts, the ability to scale up or down as needed, and, in most cases, a lower dependency on individual people. With the rise of AI, in-house teams have been strengthened almost overnight. But so have agencies. The way both sides are adapting to this new reality is incredibly interesting, and it’s an evolution I very much want to be part of.

In recent years, Grebban has brought in several people from leading e-commerce brands: you from Royal Design Group, Anders Ekelund from Mapiful, Maria Bodegård from Pet Pawr Group, and Mathias Jonasson from Nudie Jeans. Why do you think Grebban has succeeded in attracting so many former e-commerce executives and CTOs?

I believe it largely comes down to strong relationships and a genuinely caring work environment, while still maintaining high ambition and a strong focus on quality. Equally important is having the opportunity to influence the direction of the company, so that we can all feel proud of what we accomplish together. At the same time, we’re all human, and it’s essential that there is room to learn, develop, and grow.

You have been in the world of e-commerce technology for 20 years now – quite a journey. What would you say has changed the most? And what has remained surprisingly timeless?

The first thing that comes to mind is just how much the e-commerce landscape has expanded. We’ve gone from simply trying to find vendors to having to carefully choose between a vast number of available options. At the same time, there have been major technological shifts, moving from monolithic platforms to composable and API-driven architectures, and more recently the rapid rise of AI. Interestingly, we’ve also seen a renewed appreciation for more monolithic solutions in recent years, particularly where simplicity, speed, and operational efficiency outweigh the need for extreme flexibility. What’s remained surprisingly consistent, however, is the core of the user experience. User interfaces and customer journeys have stayed largely the same, despite all the innovation happening behind the scenes.

On that note, what are some of the most valuable learnings you have gathered about running a great e-commerce tech architecture? What are your key dos and dont’s, and the best practices you believe brands should never overlook?

One of the most important learnings is that good architecture is as much about organisation and decision-making as it is about technology. The best solutions are rarely the most complex ones, but the ones that are well understood, well owned, and aligned with how the organisation actually works. E-commerce architecture should be seen as a living system rather than a final state. It needs to evolve alongside the business, the team, and the market conditions, and it should support change rather than resist it.

And finally, let’s wrap up with some inspiration. What non-fiction book or article would you recommend to Grebban’s followers?

At the moment, I find myself drawn to writing that focuses on decision-making under uncertainty, and on the importance of process over outcome. For people working in e-commerce, I think it’s less about finding the perfect answer and more about having a repeatable way of making sensible decisions as conditions change. A good and accessible entry point into that way of thinking is Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke. It’s a practical reminder that good decisions don’t always lead to good outcomes, and that the quality of the decision process matters more than being “right”. On a more hands-on level, I often come back to simple decision matrices, such as The Eisenhower Matrix or The decision matrix popularised by Farnam Street. Adapted for e-commerce, I find them particularly useful when prioritising backlogs by weighing feasibility, in terms of total cost and effort, against impact. That kind of “value for money” thinking helps teams focus on what actually moves the needle, rather than what feels most urgent.