Alexis Lebel started his career as an auditor with KPMG in the financial services industry. In 2004, he joined an international NGO in Afghanistan, where he worked on a World Bank financed community mobilization and local governance program. He subsequently specialized in microfinance and spent a further four years in Afghanistan where he started the greenfield microfinance institution OXUS, now one of the market leaders in the country.

After 2010 he worked in China, Rwanda, Liberia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan as a consultant on technical assistance projects in microfinance and SME finance. In 2013, together with most of the team which used to develop Octopus, he co-founded OpenCBS, which has now become a successful technology company developing an Open Source Core Banking Software for banks and microfinance institutions.