Welcoming Marco Alparone, Chief Technology and Product Officer to Liv-ex
Welcome to Liv-ex Marco, tell us a bit about yourself, and your love for wine.
Welcome to Liv-ex Marco, tell us a bit about yourself, and your love for wine.
I’m Italian. I was brought up in Naples the land of coffee and pizza (and Taurasi) and moved to the beautiful island of Ischia when I was 12. Passion for food and wine comes with the culture and the family upbringing. I remember my uncle gifting me a bottle of Primitivo when I was a young boy. I remember helping my school friends during September vendemmia (grape harvest), the camaraderie that builds up at the end of the day, the heat, the food and the wine.
The passion never left me, it grew wider to include food. I can be humble, but I do know I can cook, bake (bread and desserts) …and before you ask, no I don’t cook spaghetti with bolognese, only tagliatelle! I do have my cellar… now let’s be honest here it’s just a fridge (technically a low vibration aging cabinet) with 160 bottles, not exactly fine wines, but in a way, it cements my passion.
Of course, at the core I’m a technologist. I had my first Commodore at 11 years old and never looked back. I was developing software for local stores on the island by the time I was 14 and, by 16, I got into architecture with CAD design helping local studios to digitalise. Then suddenly the island felt very small. I call it the bug. You either have it, or you don’t so after my computer science MA I left (I did work in academia for a bit). And here we are, a UK resident for almost 20 years where I fulfilled my passion by becoming a leader in technology transformations.
What attracted you to Liv-ex?
I came across Liv-ex a year or so ago because I was interested in wine data for a personal AI project, so I knew the company offering already.
And then as always… it’s a bit of serendipity. I had the chance to combine the 2 industries I truly love. I always had a passion for digitalisation even before my career began and I truly believe I can help widen the Liv-ex offering to bring modernity to the wine journey. Liv-ex is already ahead of the curve, and we can skyrocket from here – did I tell you rocket science is another passion of mine? Delta V aside, did you know that 12 bottles of Petrus were sent into orbit to study the effect of microgravity on wine? I’d be curious to understand the implication of cosmic rays as well. But I think I’m digressing…
I’m very excited about the possibilities that modern technologies can offer including, dare I say it, AI. There’s so much noise about the topic that we risk becoming immune or resistant to the innovations it can offer, from developing new software at breakneck speed, to independent agents doing all sorts complex task. Then there’s MCP, but we’re getting too technical. I can only say wait and see – smile.
What’s your vision for the Technology and Product side of the business?
Liv-ex has been the engine room for the trade for years. We bring businesses together to buy and sell while handling the heavy lifting of logistics and settlement. But just before I joined, the business realised we were sitting on a goldmine. Or perhaps I should say… an oil field.
They say data is the oil of the 21st century. We have 25 years of historic transactional data, plus data on the wine itself, from critic scores to drinking windows. It’s always been there, but we weren’t positioning the value of this data for businesses in the fine wine space . My near-term vision is to refine this oil and put it front and centre.
In this market, you cannot run a business on gut feel alone. That is like trying to navigate to the Moon using a sextant when you could have a guidance computer. Our members need hard data to price their cellars, spot arbitrage opportunities, and benchmark against competitors. We are going to give them those instruments.
But data is useless if you can’t consume it. We are working on a project to overhaul the usability of the Liv-ex Exchange. I like to think of it like a professional kitchen… everything needs to be in the right place so the chef can work without thinking. We are speaking to members to understand their workflows so we can design a layout that feels natural, not an obstacle course.
Then there is the need for speed. We need to iterate faster. A major focus here is modernising our API integrations. This is the digital plumbing that allows members to plug into us. When it works well, it’s beautiful. Members can automatically list stock on Liv-ex or show our listings on their own sites. We have seen businesses triple their sales overnight with this automation. That is the power of good architecture.
Finally, we have to talk about AI. There is so much hype right now that it is hard to separate the signal from the noise.
We need to distinguish between the “classic” Machine Learning (classifiers and recommenders that have been around for years) versus the new wave of Generative AI and Large Language Models. We are looking at both, but with a critical eye. We aren’t going to just slap an “AI” sticker on the product to look modern. I want to use AI to improve our internal efficiency first, to give better insights. If we introduce it to members, it has to be genuinely helpful… not just a shiny toy.
What does this mean for the broader Liv-ex business?
Look, let’s be honest here… I’ve been in the seat for five weeks. I am still very much in the “listening tour” phase (and still trying to find the best espresso machine in the building). So, I can’t give away the entire roadmap just yet.
But fundamentally, this signals a shift towards becoming a truly Product-Led business.
It means we stop thinking about features in isolation and start thinking about outcomes for our members. We need to align strictly with how they work and what they need to succeed. If we can treat our Data as a Product (packaging it so it is instantly valuable to them) we help them service their own goals.
Internally, this mindset shifts gears on our Time to Market. We want to move faster. By increasing our own efficiency, we create the space to grow and develop the business continuously.
I am excited for what is to come. A vision is great, but as an engineer, I will be even happier when we shift to execution… when the rubber hits the road. Or perhaps, when the rocket clears the tower.
