Mr. François Barrault is Chairman and Founder of FDB Partners SPRL, an investment and advisory firm in TMT and renewable energy. Mr. Barrault started his career as a researcher in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence with IBM Corporation, then founded and sold several businesses. He has held senior positions in a number of large global companies, in particular Lucent Technologies, where he was President and CEO of Lucent EMEA and then, as International CEO and corporate officer, ran Lucent’s 38 acquisitions in the Internet sector.
Mr. Barrault retired at the end of 2008 from the position of CEO of BT Global Services and as a BT Group board member. In BT Global Services, Mr. Barrault created a world leader in Networked IT services comprising 37,000 employees and operating in 176 countries, in four years acquiring 32 companies around the world. In parallel, he led BT Innovate, the advanced R&D and innovation team of BT Group, and in this role chaired and sponsored numerous initiatives with the most prestigious universities in the world.
Mr. Barrault has been very active at the World Economic Forum (Davos and regional forums) and created and then chaired the BT Global advisory board, with sixty world-class leaders from around the world. He is also active in lecturing worldwide, and is a member of various boards of public and private companies, advisory boards, private investments funds and foundations around the world.