Sylvain Grande

He/him

CPO, PayFit

Sylvain is the Chief Product Officer of PayFit, a leading European payroll and HR solutions SaaS platform focused on small companies. He leads product management, design, data, product building and compliance teams at PayFit. Formerly COO and CPO at Yieldstreet, a private markets direct to consumer platform and SVP Product & Design at Shutterstock, Sylvain has worked across different verticals in tech, in Europe and in the US. Sylvain brings more than 20 years of experience in leadership, product and technology with strong business foundations, having worked at Sony, HERE Maps, Myspace.com and SoundCloud. Sylvain holds an MBA from Essec, France and a BA in History from La Sorbonne, Paris.

Session

Unit economics meets Transformation: A Story towards profitability

For years, growth meant adding more people. Headcount became the default success metric—until it wasn’t. In this talk, we’ll explore how we shifted from a culture of expansion-at-all-costs to one driven by business fundamentals: revenue, margin, and product-led growth. Over 2.5 years, we navigated a radical transformation—exiting markets, shutting down features, reshaping teams—all while overhauling our tech. This is a story of leadership under constraints, tough (but necessary) decisions, and aligning product with profitability. Whether you’re a leader, a PM, or just someone facing similar challenges, this session will help you turn transformation into opportunity.