“In a global and critical sector like Cybersecurity, national start ups and scale up can’t grow without activating financial-technological-business partnerships. ECA’s promise to harness the power of a pan-european network and provide strategic and operational support, is a great initiative to facilitate the emergence of European Champions.”

Pierre is a business leader with a broad range of experience across the technology landscape and a passion for growth projects. He started his career within Capgemini, a Consulting & IT Service global firm, involved in large project of IT transformation. Then Pierre has developed an expertise in growing business in diverse Technology and SaaS leaders such as Microsoft and LinkedIn.
Pierre Byramjee is currently in charge of leading growth at CybelAngel, European Leader of data leak detection.

” To accelerate the development of innovative European start-ups and build real global champions – especially needed in the trusted tech and cybersecurity sectors, growth capital funding is required and needs to be complemented by smart operational acceleration support. “

François Lavaste joined Ace Management in 2019 as a Partner in the team in charge of the first French fund dedicated to cybersecurity. He previously worked at Airbus where he held various positions in the field of cybersecurity, including CEO of Airbus CyberSecurity, founder of Stormshield and Head of Digital Security for Airbus Defence and Space. François managed Netasq (acquired in 2012 by Airbus) and worked in the US for various Silicon Valley companies (e.g. Brightmail, spam filtering, acquired in 2004 by Symantec). He is a graduate of ESCP Europe and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

“More than ever, collaboration between innovative European stakeholders is key to face the challenges ahead! The next coming years will be decisive to build a sustainable growth on a national and European scale. As we are witnessing the emergence of new disruptive and promising technologies, we must push for less fragmentation and more interaction between European ecosystems to pave the way for next EU tech champions.”

Mael M’Baye joined the French Public Investment Bank (Bpifrance) in 2016 and is currently in charge of Bpifrance’s International Tech Program. The latter mainly focuses on supporting Scale-ups on their tech and business development strategy in Europe and worldwide. Previously, Mael also worked on the “Pass French Tech” program dedicated to French hyper-growth startups and unicorns. He also worked in Lebanon, Turkey and France on CSR, Green finance and PR projects. He is a graduate of Sciences Po Paris in International Public Management and Global Risks (PSIA).

Philipp is a Berlin-based entrepreneur and investor. In 2009, he founded home24, the leading ecommerce platform for home & living in Europe and LatAm (IPO 2018). Together with his friends at SB21, Philipp is an active investor in numerous leading internet and technology companies including Auto1, Amorelie (exit to ProSiebenSat1), Billie.io, Billpay (exit to Klarna), Betreut.de (exit to Care.com, IPO 2014), CarJump (exit to Peugeot SA), Comtravo, eDarling (IPO 2017), flaschenpost, Freighthub, Lingoda, Lillydoo, McMakler, Minodes (exit to Telefónica), MODIFI, PlusDental/Sunshine Smile, Medwing, Nebenan.de, Tradoria (exit to Rakuten), Visual Meta (exit to Axel Springer), Xletix (exit to Infront) and Zalando (IPO 2014). Before home24, Philipp was one of the founding managing directors of Rocket Internet (IPO in 2014). Earlier, he worked for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and The Boston Consulting Group. Philipp holds two legal state exams and a PhD in law from Freie Universität Berlin. He favors Borussia Dortmund.

“Tech ecosystems are very active in Europe and some great companies have emerged within the last years. But we can do more! The 450 M+ people European unified market is still hard to reach, requiring significant investments every time a local startup wants to expand to a new European country. Meanwhile, startups from US and China have access to real unified local markets from day 1.  The diversity of our EU culture is a powerful asset for all of us as Europeans but we need more cross-country EU business initiatives Iike the ECA to empower our local champions and help them reach new heights.”

Nicolas Roux has an MBA in the USA and has been CFO of Malt for 2.5 years with 10 years of experience in the financial management of French and American startups/scale up companies. He started his career at Dailymotion in Paris, with a focus on France and the US. He even joined the American teams in Palo Alto in 2014 and spent 3 years in Silicon Valley, working in the marketplaces sector and then in virtual reality, before returning to France in 2017 to join Malt.

Frédéric Montagard is an engineer from the Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité (SUPELEC). He started his career at Aérospatiale in Cannes as the Payload Manager of a Chinese satellite. He then joined the Thales group in military avionics in Bordeaux, then the A380 adventure in Toulouse until the first flight in 2005. As an expatriate in Moscow, he led the local teams of the SSJ10 program, including the transfer of skills on the modular avionics suite and the triple certification of Russian, European and American aircraft. Back in France, he led several complex international air traffic management and air defence programmes. He is currently in charge of innovative start-ups for the Thales Group. He is also a lecturer in Project Management at CentraleSupélec and the University of Paris-Sud.