Signals Behind the Screens

Design in Motion

When Tom Cullen took over as Corsair's CIO in April 2021, he inherited a complex, high-performance brand that had grown through rapid acquisition. Some of the biggest names in gaming, including Elgato, Origin, and Scuf, were now under the Corsair umbrella. But each brought its own stack of technologies, workflows, and data silos.

The real challenge wasn’t scaling infrastructure but creating unity without sacrificing identity. Tom’s vision went beyond integration. He wanted to craft an agile, insightful, and intensely customer-centric global digital platform. “Your job as a CIO is to bridge that gap between process standardization and keeping your technology stack as standard as you can,” he said, outlining a central philosophy of clarity over complexity.

He saw an opportunity in Corsair’s software ecosystem, particularly iCue, which controls RGB lighting, fan curves, and performance telemetry across the company’s hardware line. What if the signals from that platform could be connected to commerce? What if Corsair could not only sell gaming gear but understand precisely how it was used and predict what users wanted next? In Tom’s words, “It’s about getting close to the data.”

The Friction Behind the Tech

Before the transformation, Corsair’s tech environment was high on horsepower but low on integration. Brand websites ran independently. Product data wasn’t normalized. Marketing workflows had to cross multiple systems to build campaigns. The e-commerce stack was highly customized, which made even small updates or feature tests labor-intensive. “Technologists love to overcomplicate things,” Tom joked, reflecting on the common temptation to customize everything rather than simplifying for long-term scalability.

Customer data was another pain point. Sales channel insights were fragmented, product telemetry was disjointed, and the ability to tie behaviors together across the customer journey was limited. Reporting cycles lagged, and forecasting was largely backward-looking. Though Corsair’s customers were some of the most technically passionate users in the world, the company didn’t yet have a feedback loop that mirrored their sophistication.

A Data‑First Platforming Initiative

To address this, Tom initiated a full re-platforming of Corsair’s digital infrastructure. The foundation would be a new unified e-commerce backend supporting Corsair’s global brands. Built with a modular commerce engine and a modern content management system, the new stack allowed each brand to maintain its visual identity and audience while feeding into a centralized operations and data analytics platform.

But the real unlock came from the Customer Data Platform (CDP) they built in tandem. By streaming behavioral data from the web, telemetry data from iCue, and customer history from order systems, Corsair could construct a comprehensive picture of each user’s journey. 

This meant they could identify what customers were buying and important usage information, including what profiles they configured, how often they tweaked their gear, and what settings they preferred. “If we can ingest what products they have and how they’re using it,” Tom explained, “we can link that to how they behave online.”

Tom personally sponsored the cross-functional initiative, assembling a core team that included engineers, product leads, marketing strategists, and data analysts. The team adopted agile sprints and MVP-driven development. They worked through thorny issues: unifying telemetry from various product lines, ensuring GDPR compliance across regions, building event schemas, and designing APIs that could flex with future integrations.

The transformation officially kicked off in April 2022. By January 2023, the platform was live across global markets, marking a nine-month timeline that balanced speed with architectural depth. The velocity was notable for a company with Corsair’s reach and complexity and reflects a best-in-class critical path for enterprise-grade system deployment.

Turning Insights into Experience

Within six months of deployment, the unified data foundation began to show its power. Corsair could now distinguish between users who fine-tuned their setups weekly, those who consulted FAQs before purchasing, and those who layered in Elgato streaming gear for content creation. Marketing teams leveraged these insights to deliver targeted promotions based on real user behaviors instead of simply demographics. Product teams gained line-of-sight into how features were actually used, feeding that back into firmware and roadmap decisions.

According to internal performance dashboards, average order value rose driven by smarter cross-selling and dynamic bundles based on telemetry-driven preferences. Meanwhile, operational metrics told a compelling parallel story: platform change cycles and site downtime during traffic spikes both dropped, enabling faster iteration.

Lessons for Other Companies

What makes Corsair’s journey compelling is not just the technology but also the philosophy that underpins it. Cullen didn’t treat AI and data as external add-ons or one-off tools. He embedded data thinking into the operating model.

His approach started by removing unnecessary complexity, standardizing the stack, aligning teams on shared data definitions, and then unlocking creativity through insight. “How ready is the organization to embrace technology, to better enable, simplify, and scale their business? If you’re a technology company, it’s all about innovation and speed,” he said.

He’s also vocal about looking beyond the walls of your own company. Tom leveraged startup partnerships, advisory boards, and external benchmarking to assess when to build versus buy. He encouraged his teams to think modularly, designing systems with plug-and-play capabilities that could evolve with Corsair’s business and its ecosystem of partners, streamers, and gamers.

Future Play

Looking ahead, Corsair’s ambitions are bold. The next frontier lies in predictive personalization. The vision is to enable real-time recommendations on what to buy and how to set it up, use it, and improve it. Imagine lighting presets that adapt dynamically to gameplay.

Think of firmware suggestions based on peer usage in similar environments. Support bots that can diagnose issues by analyzing iCue logs in real time. All of this is being built on the same foundation Cullen and his team have laid. Tom sees AI playing a role across product development, customer support, and community engagement.

Corsair’s shift is a masterclass in data-first transformation. Under Tom’s leadership, the company has evolved from a hardware-centric vendor into a digitally fluent platform player that listens to its users, learns from their behavior, and builds systems that adapt in real-time. The impact is in the trust Corsair builds with every click, configuration, and connection. And that, Tom would argue, is the true definition of optimization.