Luis Lavena

Group Engineering Director

As Group Engineering Director, Luis drives the agency’s engineering principles, methodologies, and processes. He is an advocate of behavior-driven development and believes that business and technology should work closely together to identify real value. Since joining AREA 17 in 2007, his key client engagements include Krrb, BurdaStyle, Facebook, Webby Awards, Vice, Dering Hall, and Charlie Rose.

Collaboration is key with Luis. A leader in the open-source community, he loves to bring people together to do extraordinary things. For 8 years, he maintained the One-Click Ruby Installer, for which he won the ‘Ruby Hero’ award in 2010. Luis is also one of the few engineers in the Americas who have access and commit permission to the Ruby source code.

Before joining AREA 17, Luis ran a technical consulting company specializing in software and hardware solutions for the video broadcasting industry. The high demands of that industry coupled with the need for non-stop service developed his “acquired taste” for sustainable systems.

Luis is a native of Tucumán, Argentina, and studied Computer Science at the University of Tucumán. Since moving to Paris in June 2018, Luis has been happily discovering the art, culture, and history of the City of Lights (and last but not least, the new flavors of the French cuisine!)