About us

A 1983 graduate of École polytechnique, Philippe Donnet began his career at AXA in France and Canada. Named CEO of AXA Italy in 1999, he headed AXA Corporate Solutions, of the AXA Re reinsurance subsidiary, and several AXA areas. Before joining Generali Group in 2013 as CEO of the Italian subsidiary, he launched and developed the Wendel group’s Asia region, and co-founded the investment firm HLD.

A 1956 graduate of École polytechnique, François Ailleret began his career at the civil engineering department in France’s Nord region, before taking part in the construction of Roissy airport with the ADP group, from 1967 to 1970, and becoming director of operations for Paris airports. He then worked his way up through the ranks at EDF (transport, distribution), where he was named CEO in 1994. Following his departure in 2002, he chaired a number of institutions, including Afnor, the Pasteur Institute and the School of Neurosciences in Paris.

A 1955 graduate of École polytechnique, Claude Bébéar began his career in the Anciennes mutuelles d’assurance (AMA) group, where he took on various roles before being named CEO in 1975. In the 1980s, he made AXA the leading French private insurer, through business creations (AMré) and acquisitions (Drouot Group, Mutuelles unies, Présence, Compagnie du Midi), before turning it into a world-class group (Equitable, National Mutual, UAP) in the 1990s. He is committed to humanitarian sponsorship, and is the founder and honorary president of Institut Montaigne.

A graduate of ENA and Sciences-Po Paris and holder of a bachelor’s degree in literature and a master’s degree in history, Marc-Antoine James began his career at the Court of Auditors as an auditor. He then became a public auditor, before being appointed chief of staff to the president of the National Assembly (1992–93 and 1997–2000), and special advisor to the minister for the Economy, Finance and Industry (2000–01). He was elected mayor of Val-de-Reuil in 2001, and is the vice-president of the Seine-Eure conurbation. He also was the vice-president of the Haute-Normandie regional council (2004–15).

A former wali for the Casablanca region and a member of Parliament, Mohamed Kabbaj is a graduate of École polytechnique de Paris and École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (the French civil engineering department). He holds an advanced degree (DEA) in econometrics from La Sorbonne and is member of the Académie Hassan II des Sciences et Techniques. Previously chairman of Lafarge Morocco, he was advisor to the King Mohammed VI, minister of Finance and Foreign Investment, minister of Public Works, Vocational Training and Executive Training, and chairman of the Development Committee of the IMF and the World Bank.

He is not a member but a permanent guest of the editorial board of Polytechnique Insights as a board member.

Éric Labaye is President of École Polytechnique since 2018 and President of the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, created in May 2019 to bring together École Polytechnique, ENSTA Paris, ENSAE Paris, Télécom Paris and Télécom SudParis. Previously, Éric Labaye was Senior Partner at McKinsey&Company, a member of the firm’s Shareholders Council (Global Board) and Chairman of the McKinsey Global lnstitute (MGI), where he led numerous research projects on key economic issues such as growth in Europe, productivity, digitisation, the future of work and inequalities. Éric Labaye is a graduate of École Polytechnique, Télécom Paris and holds an MBA from INSEAD. He is guest member of the board of directors and editorial board of Polytechnique Insights.

Catherine Lucet is a graduate of École polytechnique and École des Mines in Paris, and holds an MBA from INSEAD. She began her career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before joining McKinsey. She then became director of the Harlequin publishing house, before being appointed CEO of Elsevier. She is president of Nathan, Bordas, Retz and CLE International, and former president of Le Robert dictionaries. She is also a member of the Casino Group board of directors and of the supervisory board of Dutch publisher Brill.

A graduate of École polytechnique and Sciences-Po Paris, Hervé Machenaud is also a member of the Académie des technologies. Hervé Machenaud began his career within the Ivory Coast’s Ministry of Planning, before joining the French civil engineering department, and then the EDF group. He was technical director for the construction of China’s Daya-Bay power plant, head of the nuclear programme, executive director of production and engineering, and, finally, director for the Asia-Pacific region.

He is not a member but a permanent guest of the editorial board of Polytechnique Insights as a board member.

A graduate of École polytechnique, Supaéro Toulouse and Sciences Po Toulouse with a degree in actuarial sciences, Jacques de Peretti joined a regional branch of AXA in 1996. Named to the France executive committee and appointed CEO of AXA Courtage (2001), AXA Entreprises (2003) and AXA Particuliers-Professionnels (2009), he became CEO of AXA Japan and a member of the group’s executive committee in 2015, before taking the reins of AXA France the following year.

A professor of strategy at HEC Paris since 1989, Bernard Ramanantsoa was its CEO from 1995 to 2015. A former Supaéro engineer, he holds a HEC MBA, a PhD in management sciences from the Paris Dauphine University, an advanced DEA degree in sociology from the Paris Diderot University, and a DEA in the history of philosophy from Paris La Sorbonne. He has published a number of notable works, including Technologie et stratégie d’entreprise, Stratégie de l’entreprise et diversification and, most recently, Apprendre et oser and L’Enseignement supérieur français par-delà les frontières : l’urgence d’une stratégie.

Catherine Lucet is a graduate of École polytechnique and École des Mines in Paris, and holds an MBA from INSEAD. She began her career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before joining McKinsey. She then became director of the Harlequin publishing house, before being appointed CEO of Elsevier. She is the president of Nathan, Bordas, Retz and CLE International, and is the former president of Le Robert dictionaries. She is also a member of the Casino Group board of directors and of the supervisory board of Dutch publisher Brill. She is president of the editorial board for Polytechnique Insights.

A 1956 graduate of École polytechnique, François Ailleret began his career at the civil engineering department in France’s Nord region, before taking part in the construction of Roissy airport with the ADP group, from 1967 to 1970, and becoming director of operations for Paris airports. He then worked his way up through the ranks at EDF (transport, distribution), where he was named CEO in 1994. Following his departure in 2002, he chaired a number of institutions, including Afnor, the Pasteur Institute and the School of Neurosciences in Paris.

Florence d’Alché-Buc specialises in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Her work involves assessing predictive models from complex data; her area of expertise applies to a range of fields, such as industry, health and bioinformatics. A professor at Télécom, she also holds the chair of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence for Digitalised Industry and Services.

A researcher in biophysics, Antigoni Alexandrou works on the biological and biomedical applications of luminescent nanoparticles doped with lanthanide ions. She previously worked on semiconductor nanostructures, their optical properties and electronic dynamics. She is a French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) research director at the Laboratory for Optics and Biosciences at École polytechnique, and teaches at Master’s level.

An engineering graduate of the Institut l'Optique Graduate School, Chloé Aubisse-Daniault began her career in research at the CEA before moving into scientific outreach. She worked for 7 years at the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie, first in public outreach and then in museography. In 2016, she joined École polytechnique as head of scientific communication within the communications department, working closely with the research department. Since 2023, she has been in charge of scientific communication at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris.

The core of Silke Biermann’s work involves physical systems with strong electronic correlations. She specialises in the development of methods to describe such systems. She also chairs the Physics department and teaches at École polytechnique.

A graduate of the ENS, Marie-Paule Cani joined École Polytechnique in 2017 after more than twenty years at Grenoble INP, where she set up and led two Inria teams within CNRS UMRs. Her research, in the field of computer graphics, focuses on the expressive synthesis of animated virtual worlds: the aim is to design 3D representations, animation algorithms and interaction metaphors, enabling the intuitive creation and effective visual simulation of complex interacting objects. A former chair of the Computer Science Department at École Polytechnique and head of the Modelling Simulation & Learning division of LIX laboratory, she is a fellow of Hi!Paris AI research centre and a founding member of SPIRAL Art-Sciences research centre at Paris Institute of Technology.

Cyril Crevoisier and his team study atmospheric climate variables, and greenhouse gases in particular, using spatial and airborne observations. He is a French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) research director, and head of the Atmosphere, Biosphere and Climate Through Remote Sensing team at Laboratoire de météorologie dynamique (LMD) at École polytechnique. He also chairs the Scientific Committee for Earth Sciences at the National Center for Space Studies (CNES).

Claudia D’Ambrosio works on the theoretical and practical aspects of operational research. At the Computer Science Laboratory of the École polytechnique (LIX), she studies mathematical and algorithmic tools for decision-making. She is also a French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) research director, heads the Integrated Urban Mobility Polytechnique-Uber chair and is a lecturer at École polytechnique.

Philippe Escande also runs and hosts the monthly meetings of Le Monde’s economy club. He was a columnist for Les Échos until June 2012 and had a daily slot in the morning edition of Radio Classique. He is the author of Les Pirates du capitalisme, comment les fonds d’investissements bousculent les marchés (Albin Michel, 2008), Le Grand Bestiaire des entreprises (Eyrolles, 2009) et Bienvenue dans le capitalisme 3.0 (Albin Michel 2015). He holds a master’s degree in biology from the University of Paris.

Head of the Solid State Chemistry group at the Laboratory of Physics of Condensed Matter (LPMCN) at École polytechnique. Thierry Gacoin and his team mainly study nanostructures (nanocrystals, functional thin films) with remarkable optical properties. He is also a French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) research director, and the president of the chemistry department, and a physics and chemistry professor.

A graduate of ENA and Sciences-Po Paris and holder of a bachelor’s degree in literature and a master’s degree in history, Marc-Antoine James began his career at the Court of Auditors as an auditor. He then became a public auditor, before being appointed chief of staff to the president of the National Assembly (1992–93 and 1997–2000), and special advisor to the minister for the Economy, Finance and Industry (2000–01). He was elected mayor of Val-de-Reuil in 2001, and is the vice-president of the Seine-Eure conurbation. He also was the vice-president of the Haute-Normandie regional council (2004–15).

Juliette Lambin and her team collect, instruct and convey the needs and challenges of the scientific community, from the preparation of future orbital systems to the roll-out of programmes in France and Europe, to the scientific exploitation of ongoing work. She is also the deputy director of Science, Exploration and Observation at the CNES department of Innovation, Applications and Science.

Pierre-Marie Lledo’s research focuses on the adaptation and regeneration of neurons in the brain, and their interactions with the immune system. He is a French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) research director and director of its Genes and Cognition laboratory, and the director of the Perception and Memory unit and of Plasticity and Development of the Nervous System at the Pasteur Institute.

Philippe Lemoine co-chairs GS1 and sits on various boards of directors (La Poste, Trevo), having previously managed Monoprix, BHV, Groupe Galeries Lafayette and LaSer. In the area of forward-looking and societal debates, he chairs the Forum d'action modernités and is on the board of directors of the Collège de France Foundation. In the digital field, he chairs the Fondation Internet Nouvelle Génération. He started his career as a research engineer at Inria, then helped design the French Data Protection Act and the French Data Protection Authority, CNIL, in the late 1970s. He is now a member of its outlook committee.

Stéphane Marchand is an École polytechnique and ENSAE graduate. He was a senior reporter and a foreign correspondent in the Middle East and then in the US at Le Figaro, as well as deputy editor-in-chief. He founded the online economics news site E24.fr, was the editor-in-chief at Paris Tech Review and is now the editor of French magazine Pour l’éco. In 2020, he joined the Institute for Responsible Capitalism as an executive officer.

Graduate of Ecole Polytechnique (X92), EHESS-HEC-ENS Ulm Master II in economic analysis and policy, Doctor of Economic Sciences (X), Visiting Fellow Harvard, admitted to a thesis in anthropology of contemporary worlds in 2003 at EHESS with Jonathan Friedman, Michel has been proposing for the past 20 years in the context of innovative entrepreneurship, cutting-edge operational solutions aimed at accelerating the execution of the (inevitably) complex transformations of large organizations, enabled by cognitive technologies.

As a citizen, he is deeply involved in catalyzing the awareness of his contemporaries on the existence of emerging epistemological paradigms that allow leaders to envisage profoundly regenerated ways of facing the great challenges of the 21st century.

A professor of strategy at HEC Paris since 1989, Bernard Ramanantsoa was its CEO from 1995 to 2015. A former Supaéro engineer, he holds a HEC MBA, a PhD in management sciences from the Paris Dauphine University, an advanced DEA degree in sociology from the Paris Diderot University, and a DEA in the history of philosophy from Paris La Sorbonne. He has published a number of notable works, including Technologie et stratégie d’entreprise, Stratégie de l’entreprise et diversification and, most recently, Apprendre et oser and L’Enseignement supérieur français par-delà les frontières : l’urgence d’une stratégie.

Jean Salmona is an École polytechnique, ENSAE  Paris and Sciences-Po Paris graduate. As an administrator at INSEE, he has spent most of his career in the public sector. He was ultimately appointed CEO of public company CESIA, privatised in 1998, which became Unilog Consultants. In 1971, he founded the NGO Data for Development, which he chaired until 1996. In 2009, he launched ParisTech Review, now known as Polytechnique Insights. He is also a musician and the author of a novel, Une Fugue de Bach.

Benoît Schmutz is a lecturer at the Department of economics of the Ecole Polytechnique and a member of the Centre for research in economics and statistics, also associated with the Institute of Politics. His work lies at the intersection of urban and labour economics and also touches on issues of public and political economy. The main objective is to seek to add a spatial dimension to the study of inequalities and social mobility. His research combines theoretical elements with statistical analyses based on survey data, administrative data and data collected on the Internet.

Jean-François Semblat’s research focuses on the propagation of seismic waves in geological layers during major earthquakes. Using numerical simulation methods, he studies their amplification, attenuation, liquefaction, and dynamic soil-structure interaction. He is a member of the scientific council of the French Association for Earthquake Engineering, a professor at ENSTA-Paris, and the head of the Mechanics and Energy department at the Institut polytechnique in Paris.

Ezra Suleiman is the author of a number of books, including Politics Power and Bureaucracy in France (Princeton University Press, 1974), Elites in French Society: The Politics of Survival (Princeton University Press, 1978), and Private Power and Centralization In France (Princeton University Press, 1987). He was also a professor at Sciences Po for several years and has been a guest lecturer and researcher at a number of European universities, in Bordeaux, Rennes, Grenoble, Lyon, Florence, Turin and Luiss. He is a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.

From 2004, Anne Trotoux-Copperman was the communications director at Les Echos, a group she joined in 1992 as head of External Relations, then head of the communications department from 1999. She began her career as the deputy Communications director with the Expand Group. She has an advanced postgraduate diploma (DESS) in marketing and a master’s degree in business administration. She is also a certified HEC coach.

Kees van der Beek holds a Diploma in Experimental Solid-State Physics and a PhD in Mathematics and Natural Sciences. In 2019, he was assigned to the Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies in Palaiseau. He also joined the Institut de Physique du CNRS, where he was initially responsible for monitoring CNRS’ scientific strategy on the Paris Saclay perimeter, and then for monitoring CNRS’ national site policy in physics. In January 2021, he was appointed Deputy Scientific Director (ADSR) at the CNRS for the Grenoble-Alpes site. Author of nearly 180 publications in international scientific journals, he has been President of the Condensed Matter Physics Division of the French Physical Society from 2009 to 2013, and President of the Condensed Matter Physics Division of the European Physical Society from 2015 to 2020.

Kees van der Beek holds a Diploma in Experimental Solid-State Physics and a PhD in Mathematics and Natural Sciences. He joined École polytechnique in 1997 as a researcher assigned to the Irradiated Solids Laboratory (LSI), a laboratory that he headed between 2014 and 2017. In 2019, he was assigned to the Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies in Palaiseau. He also joined the Institut de Physique du CNRS, where he was initially responsible for monitoring CNRS’ scientific strategy on the Paris Saclay perimeter, and then for monitoring CNRS’ national site policy in physics. In January 2021, he was appointed Deputy Scientific Director (ADSR) at the CNRS for the Grenoble-Alpes site.