Introduction

Managing cloud environments has become one of the biggest challenges for modern enterprises. Organisations are looking to unlock the full potential of hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures and all of this while seeking to reduce complexity, ensure compliance, and keep the costs under control.

To address these needs, PwC Luxembourg has formed a strategic alliance with emma, a Luxembourg-based company with a pioneering (multi)cloud management platform, aiming to streamline cloud operations for businesses of all sizes.

In the interview below, we spoke to Quentin Bechoux, PwC Luxembourg Cloud Transformation & Infrastructure Senior Manager, and Dmitry Panenkov, emma Founder & CEO, about the journey, vision, and significance of this new alliance. 

What does the alliance between PwC Luxembourg and emma aim to achieve?

Quentin: PwC has a strategy to forge alliances with leading technology firms, which ultimately combine our firm’s expertise with our alliances’ cutting-edge technologies, enabling us to tackle our clients’ most pressing business problems. This is exactly the case here, as this alliance addresses one of the toughest challenges today: governing cloud infrastructures that are global, hybrid, resilient, and sovereign, while keeping costs under control. PwC brings to the table our vast expertise in strategy, regulation, and change management, while emma provides the technology to execute. This ensures clients don’t just adopt cloud, but reap the benefits: resilience, sovereignty, and efficiency. It’s bringing expertise and tech together, so our clients can perform better.

Dmitry:  The alliance was born in Luxembourg, where our headquarters and global R&D team is located. Together with PwC, we can serve EU clients and scale internationally with PwC’s global reach. 

How will PwC and emma clients make the most of this platform?

Quentin: With emma, we can accelerate cloud and AI transformations for clients, especially in highly regulated industries. The platform guarantees compliance and sovereignty by design. Combined with PwC’s advisory expertise, we offer a secure, efficient, and trusted path to digital transformation.

Dmitry: Organisations are moving fast toward hybrid and multi-cloud to drive digital transformation. emma takes the complexity out of hybrid and multi-cloud, giving enterprises a single platform for management, governance, and optimisation. That’s critical for initiatives like GenAI, which need massive compute and orchestration. And with PwC’s strategy and advisory expertise alongside, companies get a secure and efficient foundation for transformation that aligns directly with their business goals.

Can you tell us the founding story of emma and why Luxembourg became its base?

Dmitry: I started developing emma in 2019 with a small team of developers after noticing how hard it was for companies to manage their cloud infrastructure. Luxembourg became our home in 2021 thanks to Luxinnovation’s equity-free funding programme, which provided up to €150K in grants. This was a game-changer. The same year we joined Luxembourg’s flagship startup accelerator “Fit4Start”, launched our Minimum Viable Product, and built a strong team of experts. Our mission remains clear: to make cloud management simple, efficient, and secure.

What are the key problems clients need to solve? 

Quentin: The most common challenges organisations face in today’s cloud landscape include reducing the complexity of hybrid and multi-cloud operations, as well as the need for real-time cost monitoring and optimisation. Networking management and orchestration are also key concerns, alongside enabling DevOps with automation and seamless integration into existing workflows. Compliance with regulations and addressing data sovereignty issues are becoming increasingly important, while having a clear exit strategy plan is essential for future flexibility. Furthermore, ensuring robust disaster recovery and business continuity measures is critical. This is precisely where the emma platform excels, offering comprehensive solutions to address each of these areas and empowering organisations to manage their cloud environments confidently.  

Tell us a bit more about emma....

Where did the company get its name?

Dmitry: The name comes from enterprise multi-cloud management application. It reflects our ambition: to give enterprises a simple way to manage complex multi-cloud environments.

What is emma’s long-term vision?

Dimitry: We want to create a unifying standard for the cloud—just as TCP/IP did for the internet. Ultimately, businesses care about applications, users, and outcomes, not the underlying infrastructure. With emma, they can deploy and scale seamlessly without worrying about what’s happening behind the scenes. Additionally, with our alliance with PwC, our clients can find an all-in-one solution from the system to implementation. 

How does your no-code platform serve both non-technical and technical teams?

Dmitry: For non-technical users, emma democratises cloud management. They can deploy and manage resources without writing a single line of code, removing barriers like high costs and limited expertise. For technical users, we provide advanced options: APIs, CLI, Infrastructure-as-Code tools like Terraform, and integration with CI/CD pipelines. It’s flexibility for everyone.

What does “cloud-neutral” mean for customers?

Dmitry: It means freedom of choice. Clients can work in any environment and with any provider (hyperscalers, regional players, or a mix) while emma ensures a consistent, simplified management experience.

Quentin: This “freedom of choice” will bring significant cost savings opportunities and support regulatory compliance such as exit, disaster recovery and business continuity plans. 

How have the multicultural teams at both emma and PwC shaped your innovation?

Dmitry: With 80 people from 21 nationalities, our diversity is one of our strengths. Luxembourg’s multilingual environment helps with agility and innovation, which in turn helps us compete globally while staying true to our human-first approach.

Quentin: At PwC Luxembourg, we also believe that diversity is bringing a truly unique touch/experience to our clients. We have more than 90 nationalities within the firm with our network being present in 149 countries. These common values with emma will clearly support our collaboration future success.   

Where do you see the biggest opportunities for PwC and emma?

Dmitry: AI infrastructure is a major one. Developing and deploying AI models requires significant compute power and compliance. emma helps companies access the resources they need while ensuring sovereignty, cost-efficiency, and resilience.

Quentin: The PwC expertise in supporting large clients in their Cloud strategy and the unique features of the emma platform will absolutely allow our clients to meet their sovereignty requirements, access the latest innovative services, and this while keeping the costs under control. 

Conclusion:

Quentin: With PwC Luxembourg’s strategic expertise, and emma’s innovative cloud-neutral platform, the alliance represents a powerful step forward for organisations navigating the complexity of hybrid and multi-cloud strategies. Together, we aim to set new standards in resilience, sovereignty, and efficiency for enterprises in Europe and beyond.

We’ll be promoting it through joint events, publications, and bundled solutions. For example, we’re co-hosting a Digital Sovereignty event with AWS on October 20, producing joint whitepapers and case studies, and creating integrated offerings that combine PwC’s services with emma’s technology. So, keep an eye our out for further communication. 

Or even better, let’s talk ....