Emmanuel Gachet
Group CIO
EQUANS
Emmanuel Gachet is a graduate engineer from ESIEA (Engineering School in Digital Sciences and Technologies, 1994). Emmanuel began his career in banking and insurance. He joined Paribas in 1995 as a technical team leader and became a technical architect in 1999 after the merger to create BNP Paribas.
Axa entrusted him with responsibility for computer security in 2000. In 2001, he was recruited by the Total group, where he had a career for almost twenty years. First, he was responsible for the development team, he then evolved over the years as follows: CIO Asia Pacific in 2004, head of the IT projects department in 2009, and in 2018, he was appointed CIO of the Marketing and Services branch. He was in this position when Equans recruited him.
Learn more about the France CIO community here.
Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
For more than a decade, I have been working as Information Management Senior Executive to support businesses’ evolution and enable them with emerging technologies. With 25 years of experience, I have been delivering IT strategy, digital transformation and management of IT solutions at large scale in various businesses (Banking, Insurance, Oil & Gas, retail and services) within large multinational companies (Paribas, AXA, TOTAL, EQUANS).
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
IT is not only a matter of technology, IT needs to onboard people and support business transformation in our continuously changing world. Always try to imagine the future in order to advance the next steps.
With disruption being a key theme of recent years, where do you see the CIO role going in the next 1-2 years?
The CIO role will increasing focus on the generalization of digital transformation and making the business data-driven.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out as a CIO?
Be humble, be open to the world and share your insights with others.
Tell us three fun facts about yourself.
- I always enjoy working with a diverse cultural environment.
- Hiking and sailing are my two passions.
- My biggest challenge: "How to create an IT organization in less than 18 months for a company of 70,000 employees."
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