GET TO KNOW ME…

SOME WORDS ABOUT WHO I AM…
It is difficult to describe yourself without appearing presumptuous or pedantic. Anyway, let’s do the exercise…
I am known to be an enthusiastic and optimistic person, and I do value human relations (I am not sending emails to the guy next door ;-).
Even in my different managerial positions (I did manage up to 120 people and a budget of up-to 16M€) I always remained accessible and close to the people, regardless their position in the company. I am strongly convinced that, for instance, the person in charge of cleaning the office is of equal importance than the senior engineer designing the flagship product. Indeed, for the senior engineer to be able to accomplish his mission, the person in charge of cleaning the office has to do a perfect job, and to do this, he must be respected by the senior engineer.
I have a strong ethic, in particular when it regards the management of human resources, the respect of the rules and the management of the budget (especially when it comes from tax payer money).
Even if I lead the show, I do not take the light only for myself and I do value and promote my team.
I do delegate, but I do not lose control, and I am taking my responsibilities… When it’s my fault… it’s my fault… I am not trying to blame anybody else…
And finally, let’s be honest… I am ambitious… for me, and for the company or institution I am working for.
I am open to change, able to convince, able to accept to be convinced, stiff and smooth at the same time, dedicated to the institution and ready to defend it at the highest level, able to create a team spirit among staff and among members, able to be in the front line without hiding those who are backstage (I love to put backstage people on stage sometimes :-), able to take decisions and explain them, able to draw long term vision planning, keeping in mind that excellence comes from execution, ethical, transparent and reliable.
MY ACADEMIC BACKGROUND


1993 – PhD in Artificial Intelligence
www.irit.fr
Paul Sabatier University (Toulouse 3), Computer Science Research Institute of Toulouse (IRIT), Toulouse, France

1989 – Master of Science in Computer Science (major: System Modelling)
www.lip6.fr
Pierre & Marie Curie University (Paris 6), MASI Laboratory (LIP6), Paris, France

1988 – Master of Applied Mathematics and Economy
ima.uco.fr
Applied Mathematics Institute (IMA), West Catholic University, Angers, France
MY PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES

Chief Marketing & Innovation Officer
www.trustseed.com
Trustseed is a software editor providing an innovative solution for the security of signing and exchanging digital documents based on a new blockchain architecture.Trustseed has a large international patent portfolio and is developing a platform that helps clients adapt their information systems to comply with the new European Private Data Regulations (GDPR), as well as eIDAS, NIS and PSD2.
My roles: (1) definition of the business model, (2) relationships with major cloud and ERP solution providers, (3) fundraising strategy, (4) international development strategy (Germany, China, …), (5) relations with technical partners (software development), (6) development of demonstrators, implementation of POCs, (7) member of the AFNOR Blockchain Commission.
My achievements: (1) complete redesign of the marketing plan and the “investors” approach, (2) redesign of the technical approach. Migration to a private blockchain architecture, (3) fundraising of € 2.5m in Europe, negotiation and signing of two Joint Ventures in China, (4) negotiation and management of a strategic partnership with SAP, joining the SAP PartnerEdge program (by invitation only).

Member of the Governing Board
Member of the Selection Committee
www.cleantechbusinessangels.com
Cleantech Business Angels is a non-profit organization created in 2008 on the initiative of France Angels, with the aim of developing, in France, thematic networks of entrepreneurs (cleantech, software, health) as well as regional networks of alumni of engineering schools.
The investment sectors covered are products and services around energy, pollution, water, waste, transport, housing and more generally technologies supporting the development of smart cities / IoT, Big Data, Open Data, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Machine / deep learning, deep tech …
My roles: (1) bring “IT” and “tech” competencies to the board of directors to better select start-ups during the selection sessions, (2) make the link between Cleantech Business Angels and related activities and complementary to the international.
My achievements: (1) a better deal-flow (significant improvement of the quality of accepted files), (2) teaming-up with KIC EIT Innoenergy (www.innoenergy.com) and Climate (www.climate-kic.org).

Member of the Governing Board
www.stimergy.com
Stimergy is an innovative start-up that redefines the Datacentre as a distributed collection of computing units interconnected by IP networks. Each unit, called “digital boiler”, integrates several powerful servers and use them as a source of heat to heat water to 60°C. Stimergy has two lines of business today: (a) heat (hot water sales) and (b) IT (sale of computing and cloud services).
My roles: (1) sit at the Governing Board as representative of the investor KIC EIT Innoenergy (www.innoenergy.com) until December 2018, (2) advise the CEO and the Governing Board for the development of the line of IT business (marketing strategy, partnerships, recruitment).
My achievements: (1) recruitment of a new CEO, focused on business development, (2) help to set up “leads” business through my network of contacts.

General Manager France
Member of the European Board of Directors
www.eitdigital.eu
EIT Digital, supported by the European Commission, is one of the leading European organizations in digital innovation and entrepreneurial education, driving digital transformation in Europe.
EIT Digital accelerates the introduction of cutting-edge digital innovations and enables young talents and entrepreneurs to grow.
The societal goal of EIT Digital is economic growth and the improvement of the quality of life in Europe.
To do this, EIT Digital mobilizes a pan-European ecosystem composed of nearly 200 large companies, SMEs, start-ups, universities and research institutes…
My roles: (1) Management of EIT Digital France’s French operations (team, budget, sites), in Paris, Rennes and Sophia-Antipolis. (2) In charge of the relationship with the partners and the management of the partnership. (3) Prospecting for the acquisition of new partners. (4) In charge of relations with public authorities (Competitiveness Clusters, ANRT, IRT, ANR, Universities, Engineering Schools and Ministry of Higher Education and Research). (5) Liason with French instruments and bodies related to the acceleration of innovation (French Tech Mission and French Tech in Rennes and Sophia Antipolis, BPI France, Business France …). (6) Track and supervise French start-ups to accelerate their access to the market and financing. The main start-ups I had the chance to meet were: DAMAE Medical, Evolution Energy, Ignilife, Instant Systems, Julie Desk, Karos, Milanamos, Nively, Qarnot, SecludIT, Sensewaves, Sentryo, Stimergy, Tanker, TeepTrak, Uavia, Virtuor, Vulog. (7) Member of the Management Committee Europe.
My achievements/activities: (1) Co-author of the Strategic Innovation Program 2014-2016 and 2017-2019. (2) Co-author of the 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 Annual Report. (3) Organizer of the “Partner Event” 2013 in Paris (the annual major event of EIT Digital at the European level). (4) Supervision of the Cloud Computing program in 2013, 2014 and 2015. These activities are now included in the Digital Infrastructure Program (www.eitdigital.eu/innovation-entrepreneurship/digital-infrastructure). (5) Supervision of the “Master School” program (www.eitdigital.eu/eit-digital-academy/master-school) in 2013, 2014 and 2015. (6) Supervision of the “Cyber-Physical Systems” program in 2014. These activities are now integrated into the “Digital Industry” program (www.eitdigital.eu/innovation-entrepreneurship/digital-industry). (7) Supervision of Digital Industry activities (www.eitdigital.eu/innovation-entrepreneurship/digital-industry) in 2015 and 2016. (8) Supervision of the “Digital Cities” program in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 (www.eitdigital.eu/innovation-entrepreneurship/digital-cities). (9) Head of the “Boosting Innovation Projects” internal working group. (10) Setting-up of the Master “Data Science” in 2014 (www.masterschool.eitdigital.eu/programmes/dsc).

R&D Director, Infotainment and Telematics
www.magnetimarelli.com
Magneti Marelli is an automotive supplier, 100% subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Group.
The info-entertainment, telematics and, more generally, on-board electronics activities are spread over two main sites: Turin in Italy for R&D and Châtellerault in France for R&D, production and quality control. The Châtellerault site also hosts a production plant for products destined for European customers.
My roles: (1) management of all resources to develop current and future products for European customers, with, in particular, a team of 120 people, (2) oversight of purchasing and quality processes, and relationship with suppliers and customers, (3) in charge of the technical aspects of responses to customer tenders, (4) technical liaison with PSA and BMW, (5) implementation of the research tax credit and the ISO26262 standard, integrated in the product development process, (6) boosting the group’s activities on “connected vehicles” products.
My achievements: (1) response to PSA and BMW tenders, (2) development and delivery of PSA telematics products for the Peugeot 208/2008, 308/3008 and 508/5008 models (www.feline208.net/dossiers/equipment/smeg), (3) development of the new iDrive platform for BMW (paultan.org/2010/06/30/new-idrive-in-development-magneti-marelli-and-harman-to-supply-next-generation-bmw-infotainment-system).

R&D Director, Infotainment and Telematics
www.awtce.be
AW Technical Centre Europe is an automotive supplier, part of the AISIN AW Group, a subsidiary of the Toyota Group.
My roles: (1) in charge of strategy and developments of advanced solutions for navigation systems, infotainment and telematics, (2) liaison with European customers (PSA, Toyota, Audi), (3) in charge of the technical aspects of the responses to customer tenders, (4) management of a team of 12 people in relation with the Toyota and AISIN AW marketing divisions and the R&D divisions in Europe and Japan.
My achievements: (1) dynamization of the group’s activities on “connected vehicles” products, (2) development of intelligent transport system solutions (demonstrators and POCs).

New Business Creation Director
www.hitachi.eu
Position at European level within Hitachi Europe.
My roles: (1) define specific European business models based on the group’s R&D results and in strategic sectors for the group: automotive (connected vehicle) and energy (smart grid), (2) relationship management between the Hitachi Group and the French Ministry of Industry.
My achievements: (1) setting up strategic partnerships with European and Japanese OEMs (PSA, Renault-Nissan, Daimler, Toyota), (2) development of smart grid and IoT in Europe in collaboration with the subsidiary Hitachi Data System, (3) Participation in the Inter-ministerial Commission for Sustainable Development and ICT (DETIC) in 2009.

General Manager, Information and Communication Technology Laboratory
Member of the European R&D Board of Directors
www.hitachi.eu
Position at European level within Hitachi Europe.
My role: (1) day to day management of the laboratory operation, including HR and budget management, (2) definition of the strategy in collaboration with the local team, (3) negotiation with headquarters, laboratories and business units in Japan and USA to get funding for the European strategy development, (4) reporting of activities to Japan.
My achievements: (1) initially recruited as Deputy General Manager and quickly promoted Managing Director, (2) Member of the Executive Committee of the R&D Europe Division, (3) Launching of the ETSI Technical Committee on Transport Systems, (4) setting up an external financing strategy, (5) recruiting a team of 15 people made up of 7 nationalities, (6) in 2003, carrying out the first road tests in Europe of technologies for the connected vehicle, (7) the laboratory quickly became the global competence centre “connected vehicles” and “intelligent transportation systems” for the group.

Chief Information Officer
www.mediametrie.fr
Médiamétrie provides, in France, the scientific measurement of the audience of the main audiovisual (then digital) media, recognised by all actors and the profession (media, advertisers, agencies).
Since the 2000s, the company has expanded its activities to include the Internet, digital entertainment and new media.
My roles: (1) in charge of internal IT management (600 employees), (2) establishment of a 300-position call centre operating 24/24-7/7, (3) in charge of managing the infrastructure for collecting and calculating audience, (4) in charge of IT “clients” (provision of audience data and the results of ad-hoc studies with clients), (5) member of the steering committee (12 members) and the strategic committee (9 members).
My achievements: (1) Initially recruited to manage the software development department (12 people), I was quickly promoted to the management of the entire IT department (40 people), (2) design and implementation a project management methodology, a quality assurance process and the application of the ISO-9001 standard, (3) launch of the 1st product for the audience of websites and the 1st product for the audience of digital television, (4) launch of the first solution for providing mobile audience data

Project Director
www.canon.com/technology
My role: technical project management in telecommunications and artificial intelligence.
My achievements: (1) I proposed, and obtained, a project at the group level (sponsored by the group Executive Committee) to develop an innovative solution to an identified marketing problem. The main application was for the personal printer market, (2) More than 10 patent applications from the project. The results are implemented in products available on the market.

Deputy Project Leader
ec.europa.eu/jrc
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the research laboratory of the European Commission. Italy hosts the main site, with 1,500 researchers.
My role: responsible for the technical design and management of an information system framework for the assessment of the operational safety of nuclear power plants.
My achievements: the information system thus produced has been deployed and generalized to all types of industrial systems.

Researcher
code.ulb.ac.be/iridia.home.php
My role: In charge of the technical aspects and management of a project funded by the European Commission to develop a mathematical model and an information system for the choice and management of nuclear waste repositories.
My achievements: (1) deployment of the solution for the choice of nuclear waste storage sites in Great Britain, (2) finalization of my PhD research, (3) implementation, in collaboration with the IT department of the University of internet access and computing facilities for the laboratory.
Personal Note: in the course of a lifetime you will not meet that many people with such a humanity that they are influencing you for the rest of your life. Philippe SMETS, founder and Director of the ULB’s IRIDIA laboratory, was one of them. I owe it to him to have been able to complete my doctoral thesis in the best possible conditions and to have provoked the encounters that have made me who I am today, both humanly and professionally. His “departure” in 2005 was a shock to all those who knew him from near or far, and there were many of them. http://www.ecsqaru.org/smets_obituaryv2.pdf
COMMITTEES, BOARDS AND ASSEMBLIES

Member of the Board of Directors and the Strategic Committee, Médiamétrie, from 2000 to 2002.

Member of the European Board of Directors, Hitachi Europe R&D Division, from 2002 to 2008

Assembly of Members of Eurécom Institute, Representing the Hitachi Group, from 2002 to 2008.
Assembly of Industrial Members of Eurécom Institute, Representing the Hitachi Group, from 2002 to 2008.

Representative for the Hitachi Group in the French Government Inter-Ministerial Commission DETIC (Sustainable Development and of Information and Communication Technologies), in 2009. https://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/rapports-publics/094000424/index.shtml (in French).

Curriculum Council Member, Telecom Bretagne Engineering School (member of Workshop 6: How to integrate innovation within the training curriculum?), in 2009. http://www.telecom-bretagne.eu/data/formations/Conseildeprogrammes2009/Synthèse_Ateliers.pdf

Member of the European Board of Directors, EIT Digital from 2013 to 2017.
Chairman of the Steering Committee and the General Assembly of EIT Digital France from March 2013 to February 2017.

Member of Mathematics and Digital Sciences projects evaluation committee, ANR (The French National Research Agency), in 2015.

Member of the Board, Stimergy (http://www.stimergy.eu/), on behalf of KIC InnoEnergy, from March 2017 to December 2018.

Member of the Board, Cleantech Business Angels (http://www.cleantechbusinessangels.com/), since March 2017.
Member of the Selection Committee of Cleantech Business Angels since March 2017.
IN THE PRESS

Une nouvelle génération de réseaux locaux sans fil, Les Echos #18872, 24/03/2003, page 106, Isabelle Bellin. http://www.lesechos.fr/24/03/2003/LesEchos/18872-519-ECH_une-nouvelle-generation-de-reseaux-locaux-sans-fil.htm.

7ème Symposium Hitachi-Eurécom : la révolution mobile « ad hoc », SophiaNet.com, 13/11/2003, Jean-Pierre Largillet. http://www.webtimemedias.com/old_article7681 L’ordinateur au secours de la sécurité routière, Nice Matin, 20/11/2004, Philippe Dupuy. http://amarger.eu/docs/Nice_Matin-20_novembre_2004.pdf

Strade più sicure con la rete senza fili, Corriere Economia, 29/11/2004, page 27, Chiara Sottocorona. http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/2004/novembre/29/Strade_piu_sicure_con_rete_ce_0_041129062.shtml

Measuring the success of the next generation Internet, innovations-report, 21/06/2004. http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/information-technology/report-30409.html

Interviewed for the Annual Report 2005 of the AFII (Invest in France Agency, now Business France).
See https://youtu.be/Qguk7V8kIKk

Symposium Hitachi-Eurécom & NITC: rendre le monde Internet plus sûr, Sophia-Net.com, 6/12/2005, Jean-Pierre Largillet. http://www.webtimemedias.com/old_article12269

Sophia : Bonjour MTF (Méditerranée Transports du Futur), Sophia-Net.com, 20/7/2005, Jean-Pierre Largillet. http://www.webtimemedias.com/old_article11341

Les industriels azuréens à la conquête de la Chine, Nice Matin, Edition ECO, 26/09/2005, Georges Bertolino / FERNANDES. http://amarger.eu/docs/Nice_Matin-26_septembre_2005.pdf

Interviewed for the French Senate Report #426, Les apports de la science et de la technologie au développement durable, Tome I : Changement climatique et transition énergétique : dépasser la crise, 27/06/2006. http://www.senat.fr/rap/r05-426/r05-426.html

Transports : les défis de l’énergie à Grasse, Nice Matin, 13/10/2006. http://amarger.eu/docs/Nice_Matin-13_octobre_2006.pdf

Les meilleurs experts mondiaux à Sophia Antipolis, Nice Matin, Edition ECO, 12/06/2007, Christiane Navas / HUFFSCHMITT. http://amarger.eu/docs/Nice_Matin-12_juin_2007.pdf

Così le auto «parlanti» dimezzeranno gli incidenti, Corriere della Sera, 6/2007, page 51, Chiara Sottocorona. http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/2007/giugno/11/Cosi_auto_parlanti_dimezzeranno_gli_co_9_070611089.shtml

ITST 2007 : la sécurité active prend place dans les véhicules, SophiaNet.com, 6/06/2007, Emmanuel Maumon. http://www.webtimemedias.com/wtm_article43922

This week we want to know all about… Finger vein scans, The Observer, 3/02/2008, David Smith. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/feb/03/sciencenews.news

Finger-vein biometrics on the rise, Homeland Security News Wire, 5/02/2008, http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/finger-vein-biometrics-rise

Multimédia auto, où sont les standards?, Digital World, Dossier Vidéo, 26/08/2008, David Chokron. http://www.digitalworld.fr/multimedia-embarque-ou-sont-les-standards,6403,a.html

Fiat planche sur une flotte de robots pour alimenter les lignes d’assemblage, Industrie & Technologies, Juliette Raynal, 13/04/2016, https://www.industrie-techno.com/fiat-planche-sur-une-flotte-de-robots-pour-alimenter-les-lignes-d-assemblage.43647

Rennes. L’école EIT Digital s’implante sur le campus de Beaulieu, Ouest-France, 28/10/2016, http://www.ouest-france.fr/bretagne/rennes-35000/rennes-l-ecole-eit-digital-s-implante-sur-le-campus-de-beaulieu-4586251

Le Français ForCity récompensé lors du concours européen EIT Digital Challenge, Maddyness, 28/12/2016, https://www.maddyness.com/entrepreneurs/2016/12/01/digitalcities-for-city-recompense-eit-digital-challenge/
on Stage or in Front of a Camera
3 videos showing me on stage (use the right thumbails to switch between videos):