A World of Opportunities
Meet Fabrice: VP of Business Development - FR & South Europe
About Fabrice
Fabrice Lhonneur is the VP of Business Development in charge of growing the business of Guavus with Thales worldwide, and directing Guavus in South Europe. Fabrice has more than 20 years of sales management experience in the software industry, with the last 5 being focused on Big Data, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. He is passionate about starting from a blank page and building new, strong, synergic teams for a defined region.
Sales Team
My number one goal is to help the customers choose the right solution to embrace the new world of digital transformation.
Paris, France
Q & A
Could you please describe your role at Guavus?
I’m the VP of Sales and Business Development for France and South Europe, and I’m based in Paris. From here I manage the growth and relationships shared between Thales (our parent company and a leader in the aerospace, defense and transport domains), and Gemalto, which has just been acquired by Thales and is, too, a global leader in digital identification and data protection. The acquisition is very exciting to all of us, as this will strengthen our position in the Communication Service Providers (CSPs) market and enables us to go into the Internet of Things (IoT) market.
Separately, I’m responsible for increasing the business with the CSPs in Europe and with our partners (Cisco, Dell and Microsoft).
How does your role benefit customers?
Firstly, my role directly benefits Thales. As part of their digital transformation strategy, they use the Guavus AI-based big data analytics solution internally, and they also use it to build new solutions to address the use cases of their own customers. Guavus is already implemented at the Thales Digital Factory.
With Gemalto being now part of the family, we can also offer our state-of-the-art Telecom and IoT solutions to Thales customers.
Cisco is a strong partner which embeds our Reflex Analytics Fabric into their MURAL (Mobility Unified Reporting and Analytics System) offer and we also take benefit of the strong relationship that Thales has with Microsoft. Maintaining these relationships is my main goal.
My other principal goal is to help the customers choose the right solution to embrace the new world of digital transformation.
What are you most looking forward to in the next six months?
I’m looking forward to developing the business with Thales and Gemalto, increasing Guavus’ awareness and footprint in Europe, and growing the team. We are only a couple of people in Europe, located between France and the UK, with a huge market in front of us- so we’re working hard to show companies how Guavus can help them manage their big data and take decisive actions in real time.
What is the best career advice you ever received?
Work with people you trust and you want to work with. This is very basic but when you work 10-12 hours a day or more, you need to work with people you can work with.
What is the coolest AI innovation?
The one I haven’t met yet!
We are in a world that is moving fast and where we get used to AI very quickly. As soon as there is a new AI innovation on the market, we get acquainted with it within a super short time frame—then, of course, we’re already looking to the next one!
3 words to describe Guavus
Skill, willingness, fun.
What is your favourite French food specialty?
Almost everything! I’m definitely, positively, 100% French, so good food is always to be had if you stick around— but just to make your mouth water, I cook a delicious ‘boeuf aux carottes’ (beef with carrots)!
Fun fact:
I met a lady some years ago in an event. Looking at her face, I told her: “I’m sure I know you pretty well, but I don’t know where from and I forgot your name. But I know that I know you!”
After she left, the guy I was with told me she was very famous journalist on the French TV!
I missed the opportunity to chat with her, and that’s a shame.
See Others
Alex: CEO
Guavus has a role to play with our data science and advanced analytics capabilities to help CSPs transform the ever-growing amounts of data into useful insights.
Samuel: Senior Manager of Customer Success Support
I’m proud to be part of a company which has earned a big name in the AI/Big Data Analytics industry thanks to its technology & passionate people.
Maureen: Director of Innovation Operations
I really enjoy turning ideas into actual applications a customer can use and benefit from.
Jolly: Director of Engineering
The design of our applications must be adaptive, extendable & agile to meet the ever-evolving customer needs.
Colara: HR Manager
Coming from the public sector to a start-up is very exciting. The fast-moving environment and the flexible atmosphere here are what attracted me to this job.
Fabrice: VP of Business Development - FR & South Europe
My number one goal is to help the customers choose the right solution to embrace the new world of digital transformation.
Sameena: Product Owner
I’m constantly looking for new ways to not only meet the needs of the customer but add more value to their experience.
Phil: Director of Operations
The technologies we work with are all fairly new and evolve very fast. It’s technologically very stimulating!
Ken: VP of Global Business Development
Guavus sits at the intersection of Big Data analytics & AI, a growing space with much to discover every day.
Nicolas: Director of Product Management
I'm proud to be addressing the complexity of Customer Analytics in the Telco environment.
Shaffy: Business & Sales Operations Manager
My main role is to make sure that processes in the company run as a well-oiled machine.