Post by Paul Hermelin

For this thirteenth profile, I want to turn to someone, who looks like the incarnation of the entrepreneurial roots of the Group and still managed to embrace all its transformation, from India to strong alliance programs: Luc-Francois Salvador. He played with so many skills: technical depth, client understanding, P&L expertise, people leadership and multicultural agility. And he did everything with… an everyday passion. This proved truly electrifying for his team members! 🖥️ Luc-François joined Cap Sogeti Exploitation in 78, after an early IT experience in the French Air Force. He discovered the world of IBM mainframes and the major migrations from older operating environments to Multiple Virtual Storage. Very quickly, he became involved in employee representation and as such met Serge Kampf through the early Group works council. And Serge very early identified his potential! 🌍 Having grown up partly in South Africa, he was fluent in English when this was still rare in the French environment. Early 80s he flew to the USA, where the Group had acquired a specialist company, DASD, from where he learned migrations to MVS. He then built a strong career, in exploitation and infrastructure services, becoming President of Cap SESA Exploitation in 94. I remember his impressive win with Caisses d’Epargne in Brittany in France, an important banking migration. Later, as I had been tasked to reenergize the French organization, he led the ISM pole and became one of my close lieutenants, in charge of what was named Cap SESA Hoskyns. 🚀 After another assignment in the USA, where he was involved in the E&Y Cons. integration, he delivered his most visible contribution with the recreation of Sogeti. First as number two, then as its leader after Berend Brix left, he helped defining Sogeti around a simple and powerful idea: returning to the Group’s origin, with an entrepreneurial, local, technology-centered model. I cannot forget the energy that drove Sogeti kick-offs, often in the Netherlands, celebrating the entrepreneurial culture, showing the power of being extremely close to their clients and of course to their people. 🤝 Luc-François played very early the alliance cards, before any others. He built intimate relationships with IBM and Microsoft, and his technology passion, supported by his CTO, Ron Tolido, pushed Sogeti into emerging areas like early mobile apps and cybersecurity. Later I sent him in Hong Kong to extend our A-Pac operations. There he surprised me again with equal energy on growth and profit restoration. His focus on cash collection, incl. China, delivered stunning results. If I think back to the leadership profiles from my first post, Luc-François belongs among the best performance drivers with a strong technology-builder dimension. But what was unique was his ability to create passion, with his people, his colleagues as well as with his clients. He built strong friendship bonds with most of our leaders. And is one of my close friends.