Category: Invited guests

Global Head of the Cardiovascular and Established Products Franchise at Sanofi. With more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare field, he is a trusted and strategic executive possessing a proven track record of enabling innovative and winning strategies to achieve significant and sustainable results across markets. Before joining Sanofi in 2016, he held several positions for Pfizer as Global Established Pharma Regional President for Japan-Asia-Pacific, Director Worldwide Marketing Group, General Manager. Alexandre de Germay earned two master’s degrees in business administration and finance from Paris XIII University in France.

Medical Doctor and Psychiatrist, member of the Supervisory Board of Edeis. He is specialized in the management of conflict situations, and in particular in the management of post-traumatic syndromes. He participates in work on sleep, biological rhythms, and physiological and psychological adaptation factors. He has been practicing in Paris for 37 years, with an involvement in corporate work. He has carried out numerous consulting missions including with Progress, Danone, Rians, Laboratoires Debat, Spie Batignolles, L’Oréal, EDF, Normédic, La Poste, and with the government of Senegal. He also collaborated with IMS Health and the General Management of Manpower.

Special Advisor to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, he has over 35 years of experience in global health as a leading physician, researcher, administrator, advocate, policymaker, and diplomat. He is Emeritus Professor of Immunology at Paris Descartes University, Senior Fellow with the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies in Geneva, and a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. He was Executive Director of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Director of the French Agency for Research on AIDS, French ambassador on HIV/AIDS and communicable diseases, and UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Chief Business Officer and member of the Executive Committee of Cellectis. Prior to this position, he was Vice President, Corporate Development at Cellectis, responsible for program management, strategy and business development. Cellectis is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing gene-edited allogeneic CAR-T immunotherapies in oncology. Arthur began his career at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition, controlling global pharmaceutical mergers such as the Novartis/GSK and Sanofi/Boehringer Ingelheim asset swaps, Pfizer’s acquisition of Hospira and Teva’s acquisition of Actavis Generics. He later became Head of the Hospital Financing unit at the French Ministry of Health, where he led a team responsible for the €80bn hospital budget. Arthur graduated from the École Normale Supérieure, Paris and Cambridge University, and holds a diploma in Immunotherapy from the Université Paris-Descartes. Arthur is also a member of the French Corps des Mines.

Dr. Juliette M. Tuakli is United Way Worldwide’s Chair of Governance Committee and a Member of their Leadership Council. She is also the acclaimed medical Director/Founder of Family CHILD & Associates, a Board Member of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, co-Founder of MOREMI Leadership program and a Member of Child Healthcare Information for All. She has more than 30 years of pediatric, family medicine and public health care experience. She was on the Harvard and Boston Medical School faculties, and a Pediatric Professor. As Pediatric/Adolescent medical Director of the Children’s Hospital of Boston affiliated community health center, she initiated seminal cross-cultural, service-directed, operations research (CHILD), for many years.

President of Alcediag, Founder of SkillCell. Alexandra is a graduate of École centrale Paris (2005) and of the MIT Sloan School of Management (2009). She began her career as a junior analyst in the Transaction Advisory Services in Ernst & Young. After her MBA, she joined the McKinsey & Co Paris Office where she worked as a consultant and as a junior manager. In 2012, she joined the Alcen family group which is made up of over thirty high-tech companies active in the following sectors: defense and security, energy, medical and healthcare, aeronautics and space, large scientific instruments. She first took on the role of Head of Development, working on Alcen’s proprietary technologies such as renewable energy (thermodynamic solar power) and nanotechnologies. In 2016, she became president of Alcediag, an Alcen subsidiary focusing on precision diagnostics and developing blood biomarkers and tests for mental health and more particularly bipolar disorder. In addition in 2017, she founded SkillCell, a biotech company developing miniaturized tests for health, food and environment based on a proprietary synthetic biology and biomimicry technology.

President of Alcen, group composed of high technology companies in the fields of defense, energy, medical machines and aeronautics. He started his career as President of Tabur Marine and of Dufour. He served at Matra Group as Senior Vice President in charge of 4 departments (car electronics, robotics, computer-aided design and watchmaking). He set up and managed a telecommunication operator, Kaptech and an equipment manufacturer, Cirpack. He studied at the Ecole Polytechnique and at the Insead.

Patrick Nicolet is Capgemini’s Group Chief Technology Officer responsible for the technology, innovation and corporate venture agenda for the organization. Throughout his career Patrick has held a number of executive leadership and operational excellence roles such as Chairman of the Board of Capgemini Brazil and Executive Leader for India Operations. It was during this tenure that Patrick successfully led the integration of 30,000 new colleagues into Capgemini following the acquisition of iGate. He started his career in operations by turning around businesses notably as partner of the corporate recovery practice of Ernst & Young Switzerland and later within Capgemini as Group sales director or CEO of the Infrastructure Services business. Patrick has been recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Global Leader for Tomorrow at Davos (the precursor to the Forum for Young Global Leaders).

Founder, Chairman and CEO of WISeKey. Before founding his company in 1999, he served as United Nations Expert on cybersecurity during 17 years. He is recognized worldwide as an Internet pioneer and has a unique profile, which combines extensive high level international diplomacy experience and emerging technologies expertise. He has received many international awards for his commitment to secure the Internet. He is very active in disruptive cryptotechnology, AI, blockchain, IoT and cybersecurity. He is also an expert in M&A, fundraising, IPOs, and listed companies. He is the coauthor of The transHuman Code bestseller book.

Thierry de Montbrial is Executive Chairman of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri), which he founded in 1979. He is Professor Emeritus at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. In 2008, he launched the World Policy Conference. He has been a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques of the Institut de France since 1992, and is a member of a number of foreign academies. He serves on the board or advisory board of a number of international companies and institutions. Thierry de Montbrial chaired the Department of Economics at the Ecole Polytechnique from 1974 to 1992. He was the first Chairman of the Foundation for Strategic Research (1993- 2001). Entrusted with the creation of the Policy Planning Staff (Centre d’analyse et de prévision) at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was its first Director (1973-1979). He has authored more than twenty books, several of them translated in various languages, including Action and Reaction in the World System – The Dynamics of Economic and Political Power (UBC Press, Vancouver, Toronto, 2013) and Living in Troubled Times, A New Political Era (World Scientific, 2018). He is a Grand Officer of the Légion d’honneur, Grand Officer of the Ordre National du Mérite. He has been awarded the Order of the Rising Sun – Gold and Silver Star, Japan (2009), Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2016) and other state honors by the French and several foreign governments. Thierry de Montbrial is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole des mines, and received a Ph.D. in Mathematical Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Hicham El Habti is a graduate from École Polytechnique and Ponts et Chaussées (France), he started his career at Ernst & Young, then joined OCP group in 2013 after managing different Moroccan SMEs for seven years. He was firstly Project Leader to the General Manager of OCP, then Director of Management Control/Business Steering, before being appointed Deputy Secretary-General. Today, he is also Secretary-General of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (Benguerir, Morocco).

Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the State of Qatar in the Kingdom of Morocco since August, 2019. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Doha in 1987 as Third Secretary. He has been First Secretary at the Embassy of the State of Qatar in Italy (1997-2000). He also worked in the Department of International Organizations and Conferences, the Department of Legal Affairs and the Department of European Affairs at the Foreign Ministry. He served in several embassies (Morocco, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Spain, Argentina). He has a B.A in History and Geography from Education College, in Qatar University 1986, and a Master in International Law from the National Institute of Public Administration, Morocco 1991/1992.

Ambassador of Korea in Morocco. Mr. Yun Seong-deok began his career by joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1989. In 1998 he became First Secretary at the Embassy of Korea in Belgium and of the Korean Mission to the EU. He served in the same position at the Embassy of Korea in Lebanon. He was appointed as Minister-Counsellor of the Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva. He served as Deputy Consul General in Guangzhou, China and Minister at the Embassy of Korea in Belgium and of the Korean Mission to the EU in 2013. He served as Director-General for Bilateral Economic Affairs at the Foreign Ministry.

Airbus Space Advisor since June 2019. He has worked at Airbus for 18 years and served both at operational and high level management positions in space activities and at Airbus CEO’s office such as Head of Space Systems at Airbus Defence and Space (2016-2019) and Chief of Staff to the CEO of Airbus (2012-2016). Previously, he worked six years in the French public administration at the Ministries of Defense (including as Advisor to the Minister of Defense) and Finance.

Vice President – Chief of Staff for Strategy, Mergers and Acquisitions and Public Affairs at Airbus S.A.S. The scope of the department includes product and services strategies, intelligence, benchmarking and market forecast, M & A and Public Affairs. Carsten joined Airbus in 1997 and held various management positions in Production, Final Assembly Lines, Cabin Furnishing, Programs and Procurement across different sites and countries. Prior to joining this department, Carsten lead the running organization development, major company reorganization and transformation projects. He studied Aerospace Engineering at the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany and at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. Before joining Airbus, Carsten worked in different Aerospace companies worldwide, such as Raytheon Aircraft in the United States or IPTN in Indonesia.

Before her appointment as Minister of Trade and Industry, Soraya Hakuziyaremye was Senior Vice President in Financial Institutions/Financial Markets Risk at ING Bank in London. She also worked in various senior positions at BNP Paribas Group in Paris, Fortis Bank and the Bank of New York Mellon in Brussels. Minister Hakuziyaremye also served as Senior Advisor to Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2014. She was a board member of Ngali Holdings as well as the Brussels-Africa Hub. She brings a rich experience in global banking and advisory as well as international exposure to help local businesses become more competitive. She holds a postgraduate degree in International Management from the Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Management at Arizona State University in the United States and a Masters in Business Engineering (Ingénieur de Gestion) from the Solvay Business School at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.

Ambassador of India to the Kingdom of Morocco. Shambhu Santha Kumaran joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1995. His diplomatic assignments abroad include Political Counsellor in Kathmandu (2007-2009) and Deputy High Commissioner to South Africa (2009-2012). At Headquarters, he was Deputy Secretary (West Europe Division) handling relations with the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain as well as the Commonwealth from 2002-2004. From 2012-2016, he was Director (East Asia/China), Joint Secretary (Establishment) and Joint Secretary (Eurasia) in MEA. During January 2016-May 2019, he was on deputation to the Ministry of Defense as Joint Secretary (Planning and International Cooperation). He holds a Bachelors Degree in English Literature from Kerala University as well as an MA in International Studies and Master of Philosophy in Diplomatic Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Dr Mathias Harebamungu is the Ambassador of the Republic of Rwanda in Senegal. Doctor of physical and urban planning from the Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3, former Minister of State at the Rwandan Ministry of Education, former Secretary-General at the same Ministry after an academic career.

Member of Parliament for the 9th constituency of French people living outside France (Maghreb and West Africa). A member of the “Liberté et territoires” group, he was a member of the Defense and Armed Forces Committee before joining the French National Assembly’s Finance Committee. He was a member of the special PACTE committee and the committee of inquiry on the fight against extreme right-wing groups. He was also the press officer of Ségolène Royal, candidate in the 2007 presidential election; responsible for communication and the press within the Socialist Group of the Senate; ministerial advisor to Thierry Repentin, first Minister for vocational training and then for European integration; communication and press relations advisor in the Senate and head of the press department of Caisse des Dépôts. He is a graduate of the Institute of Political Studies (IEP) in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Director of Government Affairs for Middle East and Africa at Philip Morris International, based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Borhann is responsible for leading and providing strategic advice to 69 countries on public affairs and policy to advance the company’s objective to design a smoke-free future. He started his career in 2002 in Paris, as a Marketing Specialist for Africa at Western Union Financial Services, the worldwide money transfer leader. During his 10 years at Western Union he worked in cross-functional positions with increased responsibility in several markets in Africa, both in Marketing and Business Development. He led the North Africa Region as Senior Country Manager. In 2012, Borhann joined Philip Morris International as the Head of Corporate Affairs for Tunisia and Libya, based in Tunis. In 2015, he was named Regional Sales Manager for Morocco, before moving to Lausanne in 2017.

Emergent Technology CTO, Global Strategy Advisor, Professor in Advanced Technologies. Founder of Aspirational Futures, she specializes in the application and integration of Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and associated emergent technologies for business and societal benefit.

Ambassador of Burkina Faso in Morocco. A magistrate by training, Ambassador KOTE Zakalia has held several positions in the courts (Prosecutor, President of the Court) and in the judicial administration (Directorate of Studies and Planning). He was Director of Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (March 1999 – January 2006), Secretary-General of the Government and the Council of Ministers (January 2006 – May 2007), Minister of Justice Keeper of the Seals (May 2007 – January 2011). He was President of Chamber at the Court of Auditors until his appointment as Ambassador in Rabat (October 2016).

Nadia El Mahjoubi is a diplomat and First Secretary of Foreign Affairs, seconded to The Royal Cabinet as collaborator of the Counsellor of His Majesty The King Mohammed VI, Mr. Andre Azoulay. Prior to that, Nadia El Mahjoubi was advisor of the chargé de mission Minister Youssef Amrani at The Royal Cabinet. She was advisor in charge of Africa at the office of the Secretary General of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Morocco and desk officer at the African Department for political affairs in charge of West and Central Africa. She has a degree in Public Policies Management from the University of Mohammed V in Rabat and from the Moroccan Academy of Diplomatic Studies.

Director of Corporate Affairs in charge of Fiscal and Regulatory issues, Public Relations, and Illicit Trade Prevention for Philip Morris Morocco that she joined in 2012. Previously in 2003, she joined the US embassy in Rabat as political analyst and during her eight-year career she also worked with the US State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. In 2002 she joined the Environment and Development Agency in preparation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. She studied at American schools of Rabat, Tangier, and Bonn and later graduated from Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane in International Relations and Women Studies. She also has a Masters in Education from Framingham University.

Ambassador of France to Morocco. Graduated from the Institute of Political Studies, Ambassador Le Gal worked as a first secretary at the French embassies in Tel Aviv and Madrid and became a technical advisor to the Minister Delegate for the Cooperation to the Francophonie. She was a counselor at the Permanent Representation of France to the EU Parliament in Brussels. She moved back to Africa to be Deputy Director for Central and Eastern Africa at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. She was Consul General of France in Quebec City, then Africa Advisor to the Presidency of the Republic and Ambassador of France to Israel before coming to Morocco. She is an Officer of the Legion of Honor.

Polina is a passionate environmental entrepreneur, with two Master’s degrees in Chemistry and Renewable Energy (ocean energy). As an active traveler (68 countries) and scuba-diver (100 m), Polina saw many beautiful places ruined by negative anthropogenic impacts and based on her personal experience and internal feelings, she decided to change her career’s path from “black” side of fossil fuel to “green” side of renewable energy. After a successful 14-year career in the oil and gas industry (ex-Schlumberger), Polina decided to make a fundamental career change and to do something useful for the planet. Both her training and vast working experience led her to found HelioRec. HelioRec is an innovative startup in the field of floating solar technologies.

Masen’s Cooperation and International Development Director since September 2015. Among other responsibilities, Ali is in charge of designing and implementing an international projection strategy for Masen. In his early roles at BNP Paribas, Accenture and UTC, Ali gained extensive experience of managing internationally oriented corporate restructuring and business development projects. On his return to Morocco, Ali founded Next Management, a company that specializes in restructuring and transformation projects, and then took over the general management of MCS, a subsidiary of UTC. Ali Zerouali graduated in engineering with a degree in organizational management from Ecole des Mines de Paris & HEC Paris.