Interview with
LUDOVIC PERDRIJAT

Rayene: Can you introduce yourself?

Ludovic : I am 44 years old, married, and a father of three children, two boys aged 18 and 16, and a 14-year-old daughter.

Passionate about mountain sports, I regularly visit my favorite region, Haute-Savoie, where I engage in free skiing, hiking, mountain biking, and mountaineering with family and friends. It's an opportunity for me to recharge, be close to nature and my loved ones, and fill up with energy.

As a competitor and enthusiast, I give my all to everything I undertake, whether it's for personal or professional projects. I'm someone who loves challenges and enjoys bringing people together to reach new heights."

Rayene: A few words about your career?

Ludovic: I trained as an engineer and started my career with Thales in systems engineering. Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, I naturally moved into the world of Digital Services Company, which combine commercial and technical development, where I spent nearly 20 years, including 17 with Ausy.

I contributed to the development of the company, whose turnover increased 10-fold in 10 years, in various roles as regional manager, sales manager and delivery manager.

It's been an exciting human adventure, with a combination of organic growth and acquisitions.

In 2020, I took over as CEO of Ausy, leading a new strategic development plan at a time when we had joined the Randstad Group. It was a challenge that was all the more stimulating given that, like all companies, we were going through this Covid period with its many unknown factors.

We launched a major transformation plan that enabled us to gain a competitive edge and quickly reposition ourselves to perform well.

Rayene: How did you join the Smile Group?

Ludovic: Smile is a company I've known for many years because of its open source positioning and its reputation as a high-level technology player. As a result, I've been following the company's progress and development, which has always interested me in terms of both expertise and development performance.

Marc and I met and I was seduced by Smile's strong identity and DNA, which I fully identify with: Open, Human, Expert and Sustainable!

Marc shared with me the launch of the new Open Up development plan and his ambition to accelerate the Group's expansion, which I immediately got behind.

Rayene: What are your main missions?

Ludovic: As General Director, my role is to represent Smile's strategic vision and put in place the operational measures needed to achieve our objectives. Like a leader who leads the way, my role will be to take us all to the top together.

I have a wide range of responsibilities: strategy and business development, budgetary and financial monitoring, HR policy, supported by a committed management team.

Internal and external communication is also one of my key missions, to share and unite all the Smile teams around our common project.

Rayene: What are the major goals of your job?

Ludovic: Smile has expanded rapidly in recent years, with strong organic growth and a number of acquisitions joining the Group. This expansion will continue over the next few years.

Building on Smile's strengths and DNA, I'm going to focus on accelerating our Group's growth by creating a dynamic in line with our market.

We have all the essential ingredients for success: business expertise, technological and open source positioning and strong human values.

The main challenges and first projects to be addressed will therefore be :

- Developing the collective, One Smile, by drawing on all the group's entities and talents: Smile France, SensioLabs, UX Republic and ECS.

- Increase collaborative working by streamlining Business, Delivery, and HR exchanges

- Place a strong emphasis on commercial development: we are in a highly competitive market and need to be more aggressive than our competitors

- Developing our human potential: recruiting new talent and developing our teams to support our growth ambitions.

All these areas of development should help prepare and organize Smile for this structuring step in our development.

Open Up is our North Star, the direction we need to take!