I make the Internet a better place, one digital experience at a time.

I am here to help YOU deliver better projects and become better at your digital job by applying UX principles, embracing Compliance and understanding Tech.
This is the key to grow into a digital leader.

Hi, I am Sylvain Reiter, The UX CTO

I bet that you have not met a CTO who cares that much about end users!
Where does this "UX CTO" come from? It's my unique blend of thinking about user experience via my engineering background, passion for compliance and CTO career in agency. You can watch my 90-seconds intro to learn more!

Quick Bio

Co-founder, CTO and Client Services Officer at Cyber-Duck Ltd. We partner with clients to design, build and optimise their digital experience platforms, turning them into award-winning solutions.
Enterprise Advisor for the Elstree Screen Arts Academy with Herts LEP, helping develop their career programme, improve student employability and awareness about careers in the digital space. Guest speaker at Founders4Schools and Teens in AI.
CMI Level 3 Certificate in Coaching and Mentoring (QCF) from the Chartered Management Institute.

Becoming a creator

Joining Write of Passage #5 and On Deck Performative Speaking fellowships during the Covid19 pandemic really pushed me out of my comfort zone and improved my reading > thinking > writing > teaching process. I am now on a mission to share my experience to everyone working in digital. By following best practices, designers, developers and marketers can build better products and deliver better experiences for their

Featured Articles

I am publishing content about how my role as a CTO supports our team delivering successful digital transformation projects for clients. You can read more articles.

Follow the UK GDS Service Standard for your next corporate digital project

The internet would be a much better place if every website, portal and apps were to go through the process and an audit from the UK GDS 14 Service Standards.

7 tips when switching digital agency to support your legacy systems

Handing over the key to your digital kingdom can be a daunting task and it is actually very risky. Based on experiences, here is my 7-step guide sprinkled with tips on the critical elements of the handover process from your incumbent agency to your new digital partner.

Want to be a better Software Engineer? Understand UX first!

Who are you really writing Software for?Let's explore why focusing on UX will make you a better Software Engineer.

Featured Videos

I am a Part-time Youtuber publishing "Digital Blitz", a series of short video briefs on everything UX, Tech and Compliance. You can watch more videos.

5 steps to plan, design and build an accessible website

You just cannot avoid thinking about accessibility on the web anymore. One in five internet users is affected and it's even becoming a hard requirement now for public sector and private organisations, with legal implications if you fail to provide a compliant digital service to your users.

The 80/20 rule to deal with technical debt & refactoring

Refactoring can be expensive as an isolated exercise but will be a lot cheaper in the long term if you do it continuously. Invest the time in refactoring the source code of your product.

Secure software development to scale your digital product

it's important to apply secure software development processes when scaling a digital product or platform. From source code to deployment and cloud hosting security, what can you learn from OWASP, NCSC and ISO27001 guidance?

Featured Talks / Podcasts

I am open to opportunities for appearance on podcasts and for public speaking events, both in English and French. You can listen to more talks or ping me a Twitter DM!

Diversify your inputs for better outputs

I was recently invited on The Penguin Latte Podcast with my friend Paul LeCrone where we discussed about the digital space, personal development, sports and family life.

#AI is shaping the world - Who is shaping AI?

I had the honnor of opening up the Teens in AI FR 2021 hackathon with a Design Thinking workshop. I joined them for a 9-day hackathon mentoring young people to learn about Artificial Intelligence and the potential for ethical #AI to change the world for good. The event aims to

DevOps webinar - a CTO Masterclass

DevOps promises faster, automated, integrated software development, from planning to deployment and beyond. But setting it up requires a culture change and can be complex: the wide range of tools can be overwhelming. Where to begin?

Growing a business

Upon joining an e-commerce startup in Florida back in 2005, I immediately knew that it was the right path for me. I love being involved in many areas (tech, sales, operations, IT...) and small companies are an amazing place to learn by making decisions that shape up a business. Moving back to London in 2006, I joined Cyber-Duck Ltd. As a co-founder, we have seen the company grow organically from strength to strength: from a 2-man band back then to a 75+ strong team today.

The development of our amazing team, the evolution of our services / operations and continued growth throughout the years (including during the 2008 and Covid19 crisis) has been the most rewarding experience I could dream of.

Family life & Sports

Outside of work, I enjoying spending time at home and travelling with my pilot wife and 2 amazing daughters. I am passionate about developing them into grateful and well-rounded human beings, exploring foreign cultures and letting them discover their passion. I ran the Vitality triathlon in London back in May 2015. I really enjoyed pushing myself and the training it took months before to get into shape.

We keep our sanity through sports, enjoying runs and mountain bike excursions in leafy Berlin!

If you want to get in touch, I will see you on LinkedIn, Twitter or Strava.