Marc's word

Dear Smilians,

The summer period is over and we are now heading to the last quarter of 2022. An opportunity to give you a short progress report on our development project "Open Arrow".

Launched a few years ago, this project aims to make the Smile group the European leader in open digital, promoting the values and benefits of open-source heading towards successful clients' projects.

Let’s quickly remind the 5 pillars of the plan :

(i) "working better together", means constantly challenging ourselves, through the arrival of new talents and new structures into the group, and make our collaborations more fluid and harmonious.

(ii) "development of strategic accounts", ensuring the group a solidity and visibility on its market and offering the opportunity for our talents to work on strategic projects.

(iii) "international", Smile group targets to be the European open-source leader in Europe.

(iv) "consulting", is the key to support our customers in their digital transformation beyond technical aspects.

(v) the "convergence" of our offerings, Digital, Business Apps, Embedded and Infrastructure, to offer unique one-stop-shop services to our customers.

Since this project was initiated, many things have been done or launched, and more are yet to come. The consultative and participative "Vision" project, initiated a few months ago, has consulted you (thanks to those who participated!), as well as our partners and customers about the market and SMILE positioning. This, in order to complete our strategic project "Open Arrow" by the end of the year so that the adjusted project can be presented to you at our annual convention early 2023.

In the meantime, and we can all congratulate ourselves, the group has changed a lot in the last 5-6 years, despite the crises (COVID, UKRAINE). First in size, with a turnover and a workforce that have more than doubled; then in composition, with a rapid international development (Benelux, Switzerland, Germany, Ukraine, Morocco, Poland), new brands that have joined us (Neopixl, Sensiolabs, UX Republic, Alter Way, creativestyle, Synotis) and with them, new managers and new talents. These brands are an important part of the group today. Smile Group is now more than 12 legal entities!

This is why we felt it was appropriate to change the group's governance so that it is fully in line with its current positioning.

I am therefore pleased to announce the renewed "Executive Committee" whose members will report directly to me: 

• Véronique Torner, as Chief Infrastructure & ICT Sustainability Officer & Managing Director of Alter Way;

• Jean-Philippe Balança, as Chief International Operations Officer;

• Emmanuel Tornini, as Chief Operations Officer & Managing Director of Smile France;

• Luc Fayet, as Chief People, CSR & Transformation Officer;

• Erwan Pertuisel, as Chief Finance and M&As Officer;

• Cyrille Robinet, as Head of Global Delivery;

• Jean-Charles Bordes, as Chief Revenue & Offers Officer;

• Sophie Bouet, as Chief Of Staff.

In addition, a new governance body, innovative in its mandate, has been set up : the "Smile Group Commitee". This committee is built with people whose responsibilities are essential to the group.  The challenge is that its participants will work, not for their own area of responsibility, but for the collective benefit of the group. They will be responsible for steering strategic projects assigned by the Executive Committee, but also, when appropriate, for making recommendations and driving innovations to the Executive Committee.

The composition of this first Smile Group Committee, which is intended to be reviewed annually in the light of Group's development, is as follows :

• Fabrice Dewasmes, as Group Chief Technology & Innovation Officer;

• Erwan Kerzeho, as Skills Centers France Director;

• Vitalii Pashuk, as Skills Centers Ukraine Director;

• Sarah Merceille, as Group Financial Controlling & Analysis Director;

• Delphine Danan, as Group Legal Director;

• Vincent Pelletier, as Head of Consulting;

• Lionel Faugué, as French Regional Agencies Director;

• Sébastien Berten, as UX-Republic Managing Director;

• Ludovic Duval, as SensioLabs Managing Director;

• Stéphane Vincent, as Chief Operations Officer of Alter Way. 

Eventually, in order to allow detailed communication and maximum transparency on the group's news, a "Leaders Committee" composed of around sixty people, all legal entities included, has been set up. This committee will meet periodically to share information.

We are convinced that these new management bodies are both in line with what the Smile group is today and will enable us to achieve our objectives over the coming years.

We will have the opportunity to discuss this in more detail with the annual convention early 2023, and I felt it was important to inform you now.

You will find in this Smile News the details of this new org chart.

Of course, I congratulate the people appointed and I am very enthusiastic about the idea of working with them. Our goal is to work more than ever as a team, for the collective good of the Group and with a renewed ambition to carry our values and brands to the highest level, thanks to all of you!

See you soon,

Marc