1 February, 2009

hypios is proud to announce the members of its European Advisory Board.

Selected for the breadth and depth of their experience, each Board member shall aid with critical aspects of hypios’ strategic growth and development plan. “I’m confident that this Board will help hypios become one of the main forces in innovation worldwide,” says President and Co-Founder Oussama Ammar of hypios.

Two high-caliber PhD candidates sit on the board as advising members, charged with bringing the “solver” perspective to each strategic decision.  They represent the academic focus of hypios’ solver network, composed of thousands of PhD-level researchers across the sciences.

Jean-François Bensahel, a serial entrepreneur, co-founded software firms ECOBILAN and ASP One, and served as president of NEOVACS, a bio-tech company. He is now CEO of DSO Interactive, a fast-growing company based in France whose online legal platform is dedicated to distressed debts. He is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Paris. Jean-François acts as hypios’ entrepreneurial adviser.

Marc Darmon is now a group senior vice president and the CEO of the Naval division of Thales, where he manages over 6,000 researchers and engineers. He started his career in the Alcatel group, where he occupied various positions, including that of military networks director. He joined Thales in 1998 and held several senior executive jobs with international missions, including some in the US defense and aeronautics market. He was previously CEO of Thales Communications, the world leader in defense communications. Marc is a graduate of the French Ecole Polytechnique and the Telecom ParisTech engineering schools. He brings worldwide industrial experience to hypios.

Marc-André Feffer is currently executive vice president of strategy at La Poste, the French national postal service (and the largest French company, with more than 300,000 employees), and deputy chairman of the Board of its banking division. He is a former Maître des Requêtes at the Conseil d’Etat and a cabinet member under Gaston Thorn, president of the European Communities Commission. Before La Poste, he served as a vice president of the Executive Board at Canal +, one of the major television stations in Europe. His experience with the media industry and high-level government affairs makes him a valuable member of the board.

Anne-Hélène Nicolas is the founder of Innovatys Consulting, which provides strategic consulting services to innovative companies. She has worked at LVMH, L’Oréal, Capgemini Consulting, and was the director of development at Grande Armée Conseil, a company that specializes in helping companies finance their R&D through tax benefits and public funding. Anne-Hélène is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and holds an MBA from INSEAD. As a business development specialist, she assists hypios’ executive teams in their marketing and sales strategy.

Olivier Petros, prior to his current position as a strategic director at a large energy corporation, was managing director for Mergers and Acquisitions-Europe and senior banker at Deutsche Bank in London. He graduated as valedictorian from the Political Science Institute (IEP) in Aix-en-Provence, and from Ceram, a French business school. hypios chose Olivier for his deep expertise in strategy.

Philippe Rochaix is senior vice president and general manager, Europe, of XL Re, one of the global leaders in reinsurance with 45.5 billion in consolidated assets. He started his career in the United States, where he worked in artificial intelligence before becoming head of Asian operations for XL Re. Philippe holds an MS in engineering and has an MBA from the HEC-Paris. He brings to hypios extensive financial skills with a focus on risk management issues.

Henri Verdier founded and serves as the president of Cap Digital, a business cluster for digital content and a state-financed institution that provides consulting services and capital to new ventures. In 2008, it distributed €50 million in funding to startups. He founded the digital subsidiary of the Editions Odile Jacob publishing house and worked as executive innovation adviser for Lagardère Group, a worldwide leader in publishing and media with around 30,000 employees. Today he is director of forecasting for the Institut Telecom, the biggest European group of engineering schools, with 5000 students and 1600 teachers and researchers and a focus on telecommunications, software, and the Internet. A graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in biology and social sciences, Henri cooperates with several start-ups. His focus on technological trends helps hypios follow and use the latest technological advances.

Mathieu Solignac & Florent Masson, high-level Ph.D candidates from top European institutions, help the board keep in mind the solvers’ interests.

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About Hypios
Hypios combines intelligent crowdsourcing, competency discovery technology, and human outreach to deliver an optimal open problem-solving service. “Seekers” post R&D problems to the network and select a deadline and a price for the successful “Solver.” Hypios, which draws from a network of 950,000 experts across the world, has been solving R&D problems for global companies since 2008.

Press Contact

Hypios
Saman Musacchio
smusacchio(at)hypios(dot)com
Tel+33 1 77 13 67 79

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