Capgemini and HEC Paris inaugurate the “Digital Experience” Chair

Jouy en Josas, November 30, 2016:  A member of the HEC Paris Foundation for the past 10 years, Capgemini, one of the world's leading providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, is supporting higher education and the Foundation’s actions to promote social openness, cultural diversity and the development of talents in order to respond to digital challenges. 

In creating this new Chair and teaming up with HEC Paris’ Digital Center, Capgemini wish to contribute to the promotion of quality higher education by helping to develop new talents capable of responding to the new challenges concomitant with the emergence of the digital world. The Chair focuses on challenges related to user experience transformation in the digital era.

As of January 2017, members from Capgemini will be hosting a whole series of digital transformation workshops for HEC Paris students on topics ranging from Academia to understanding Major and Digital Certificate; this will be in addition to frequent study days as well as hosting classes through the new Ecole Polytechnique/HEC Paris “Big Data for Business” diploma. 

Capgemini will further support the HEC Paris Digital Centre by inviting their employees to share their experiences with students, sharing concrete case studies, as well as publishing white papers. 

Speaking on the launch of the Chair, Peter Todd, Dean of HEC Paris, explains: “Digital lies at the heart of HEC Paris’ development strategy. Our students are committed and responsible actors of the digital revolution that is currently taking place. Thanks to the support of the Center’s partner companies and thanks to the consulting expertise at Capgemini, the Digital Center is able to promote efficient communications between partner companies’ managers and students.” 

According to Patrick Ferraris, CEO at Capgemini Consulting France, “Nowadays, it is companies’ marketing departments that lay at the heart of new performance and business transformation challenges; in a digitalized world, brands constantly need to rethink of new ways to create a user experience that will make a difference in their industries. And this is what we wish to prepare students for.” 

Olivier Sevillia, Group Executive Board Member at Capgemini, adds: “We have been partners with HEC Paris since 2004, and we share the school’s values and one common ambition: to learn to dare! Audacity is indeed one of our group’s key values; since our creation, we’ve been valorising entrepreneurship culture. Another one of our key values is trust; we trust our technological and academic partners such as HEC Paris, we trust our talents, including our most junior members, and we also trust our clients, who put their trust in us, which has been the foundation of our growth for nearly five years”.

In 2010, HEC Paris teamed up with Qatar Foundation to institute HEC Paris in Qatar and offer world-class Executive Education programs and research activity to Doha and the region. The objective is to develop Qatar into an advanced, competitive and knowledge-based economy in the light of global corporate competition. This has been fully aligned with Qatar National Vision 2030.