Nicolas Delaplace is Luxury Lead Switzerland and Client Portfolio Director at Merkle, part of dentsu. He combines two disciplines rarely found together: CIO advisory and luxury retail. For [X] years he has helped watch, jewellery and luxury retail houses connect what makes a maison desirable to the systems that serve its clients: clienteling, CRM and client data, commerce, after-sales and, increasingly, AI. His work starts where most transformation programmes fail: between the boutique and the IT department. He helps CIOs move from running applications to running value domains, and helps marketing and retail leaders design client experiences where technology stays invisible and the advisor stays in front.