Appointments at SoLocal

Regulatory News:

SoLocal (Paris:LOCAL):

"With the appointments of Arnaud Defrenne, Chief Technology Officer, Pascale Furbeyre, Chief Marketing Officer, and Jean-Cédric Costa, Chief Information Officer, we are continuing to strengthen our new management team, and are confirming our determination to make SoLocal the digital leader, as part of the implementation of our "SoLocal 2020” industrial plan. The know-how of these three seasoned experts in R&D, and digital marketing, and technology, which is recognised by the market, and their leadership and management qualities, together with their innovative approach, are superb assets for turning SoLocal’s fundamental strengths into long-term growth drivers. Our aim is to make SoLocal the digital champion that France needs!” said Eric Boustouller, the Chief Executive Officer of SoLocal Group.

Arnaud Defrenne
Chief Technology Officer, and member of the Executive Committee
Arnaud will report directly to Eric Boustouller, Chief Executive Officer.
Date of joining: 25 April 2018

Arnaud Defrenne will be responsible for determining SoLocal’s technology strategy, for developing and strengthening the Group’s digital service platforms (Presence, Websites, and Programmatic Data, etc.) and its media (PagesJaunes, Mappy, etc.), while ensuring their quality and scalability. He will also be entrusted with the migration project of the platforms to the Cloud, as well as with the implementation of strategic IT partnerships with key market players. To strengthen SoLocal’s new value proposition, his priorities will also include improving the use of the Group’s Data, to serve the digital offerings, and the management of the company, and developing new B2B and B2C digital experiences with a "Mobile First” focus.

His role will also involve supporting the community of internal developers and IT teams, in order to align the Group with a new technology expertise momentum. One of Arnaud’s challenges will be to develop a new digital culture based on more agile internal working methods, working closely with all of the Product and Marketing teams, so as to drive the Group’s growth. By working in tandem with Jean-Cédric Costa, the Chief Information Officer, who will report to him directly, he will be able to implement the rapid and joint transformation project of SoLocal’s internal systems, as well as of its products and services.

Arnaud is a graduate of the ESA Business School, and began his career in 1997 by jointly developing the first French search engine (Nomade), and then becoming the Technical Director for all of the Liberty Serve Group’s Internet services between 1997 and 2001. In 2001, he joined the Netbooster network of independent agencies, which specialises in the implementation of corporate digital marketing strategies. He contributed to redefining the product offering and the brand’s positioning, to enable it to become an european technology leader on the market.

In 2004, Arnaud founded a price-comparison and shopping search-engine, which used an innovative research technology, and was taken over by LeGuide.com in 2005 (Gooster.com, 1 million monthly visits). He joined the independent Business Interactif digital advertising agency in 2005, then supported its takeover by Publicis, and joined the Publicis Group’s first digital network, Digitas/LBI. Arnaud developed the Group’s technology offerings such as "Digitas Content and Commerce” and "Digitas Cloud”, which provided access to key digital technology tools in PaaS mode, thanks to partnerships with major publishers. Accordingly, he took part in the transformation of the Group, which ultimately generated most of its business volumes from digital communications within a few years.

He joined the L’Oréal Group as Chief Digital Marketing Technology Officer (CDMTO) in 2015, in order to drive the Group’s transition to digital technology, and expand its digital activities and income. While at L’Oréal, he developed an innovative digital IT programme intended for 3 divisions and 15 brands. He coordinated the programme’s activities in the United States, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific Region. He also set up an Agile training programme, and provided support for innovation topics and partnerships.

Pascale Furbeyre
Chief Marketing Officer, and member of the Executive Committee
Pascale will report directly to Eric Boustouller, Chief Executive Officer
Date of joining: 9 May 2018

Pascale Furbeyre will be responsible for designing and leading SoLocal’s marketing strategy. She will specifically deal with the challenges of developing the Group’s brands and of understanding market requirements by expanding market research and analysesto anticipate customers’ expectations fordigital services designed for businesses, and offer users new digital experiences. The objective will be to increase our audiences andgrow traffic of the Group’s platforms (PagesJaunes and Mappy, etc.), and to boost the commercial effectiveness of the new digital services range on the French market, by investing in sales & marketing automation activities. Pascale will also determine marketing initiatives aimed at building a strong relationship with customers to improve their satisfaction, including via Big Data research, and the launch of a loyalty programme. She will also be responsible for SoLocal’s external communications.

Pascale holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, and began her career in digital marketing at About.com, a subsidiary of the IAC Group, in New York in 1999. She designed and implemented marketing programmes that enabled the website to grow its unique user base, and defined the strategy for editorial content. . She was appointed Marketing & Product Director in 2000, and launched Sprinks, a subsidiary dedicated to sponsored links, in 2001; Sprinks, which generated three quarters of the Group’s revenues in 2001 and 2002, was sold to Google in 2004.

In 2002, Pascale joined Overture, the inventor of sponsored links, renamed Yahoo! Search Marketing in 2005, as Marketing Director for Southern Europe. She launched the French subsidiary in 2002, and steered the marketing strategy to convince key account advertisers, their agencies, and especially SMEs to adopt the model in order to increase traffic to their websites and win new customers. Pascale launched the Spanish subsidiary in 2003, and took over the marketing activities in Italy in 2004. She was appointed as Marketing Director for France for the Yahoo! Group in 2006, to design and implement the consumer marketing strategy of the Yahoo! and Kelkoo brands, i.e. above the line advertising, direct online marketing (sponsored links,affiliation, etc.), and partnerships, to increase both websites’ audience and usage (over 14 million unique visitors per month). She launched Yahoo! Answers in June 2006, and was then appointed as Marketing Director for Continental Europe in 2008 to coordinate Yahoo!’s marketing campaigns in Germany, Spain, France, and Italy.

Pascale joined the Crédit Agricole Group as Marketing and Communications Director in 2009, and launched BforBank, an online bank dedicated to savings. She conceived and supervised the www.bforbank.com website, defined the brand’s positioning, and oversaw its launch on television, in print media, and online (2010 Effie Award in the Banking & Insurance sector, reachingfinancial break-even at the end of 2013 with 100,000 customers). Pascale joined the LesFurets.com price-comparison website, a subsidiary of the UK based BGL Group, as Marketing Director in 2013. She led the marketing strategy to publicise the brand, and convince consumers to subscribe their car, health, home, motorbike and mortgage insurance policies, and since the 2^nd half of 2017, mortgages, loans and bank account online. The platform, which was launched in 2012, has become the French market leader in the insurance and financial product comparison market.

Pascale also holds an Master degree in Film and TV studies from La Sorbonne Nouvelle(1990), and worked as a Servicing Manager at the UGC audio-visual rights management entity, which was taken over by StudioCanal, between 1991 and 1997.

Jean-Cédric Costa
Chief Information Officer
Jean-Cédric will report to Arnaud Defrenne, Chief Technology Officer.
Date of joining: 2 May 2018

Jean-Cédric Costa’s mission will be to define and implement the Group’s Information System strategy, while ensuring a full alignment with the company’s goals, and to drive the evolution of both infrastructure and internal applications to enable operational excellence, scalability, security, and return on investment. His expertise will specifically be leveraged for the "Move to Cloud” project, which includes migrating key internal applications (Finance IS, Human Resources IS, and CRM, etc.) to Software as a Service (SaaS), and also leveraging the cloud for the infrastructure supporting the customer and media digital services platforms (PagesJaunes and Mappy).

His area of action will also include bringing the teams closer, in order to encourage greater cross-divisionality, agility, responsiveness and operating efficiency, so as to support SoLocal’s digital development. Jean-Cédric Costa will report to Arnaud Defrenne, the Chief Technology Officer, so as to guarantee absolute consistency in terms of technology decisions.

Jean-Cédric is a graduate of Mines ParisTech (formerly Ecole des Mines de Paris), and began his career in California in 2001, as a Technical Manager for Systran, which specialises in translation software. He then joined TPS/Canal + in 2004 as Manager of CRM and Billing Application Services. He specifically worked on restructuring the teams in order to achieve greater efficiency, and on introducing new offerings and services (IPTV, distance selling, self-care, marketing campaign automation, etc.).

Jean-Cédric joined the TF1 Group in 2007 as the Head of Information Systems for its PiliPili subsidiary. He was involved in setting up this subsidiary and its business activities by drawing up the IS strategy, and then rolling out the information systems for finance, human resources, sales, and publishing (both print and digital). He joined Poweo/Direct Energie in 2008 and was appointed as CIO in 2010. Jean-Cédric secured and rationalised the information system, by ensuring the operational excellence of the billing and cash collection IS, standardising CRM, and setting up an efficient Business Intelligence service. He also cut costs, and set up a near-shore service centre.

He then joined Criteo in 2012, at a time when the company was preparing for its IPO. He set up the Information Systems department, with the objective of ensuring that Criteo had the infrastructure and systems (Finance, Purchasing, HR, CRM, and Marketing, etc.) required to be listed on NASDAQ, which occurred in late 2013. Jean-Cédric then supported Criteo’s very high growth in France and abroad. He expanded the information system in order to cover new processes and to improve Business Intelligence capabilities, while ensuring cybersecurity. He was also responsible for providing Criteo employees with cutting-edge technology, in order to make their work both enjoyable and efficient, and to facilitate collaboration, while finding the right balance between modernity, productivity, and cost.

About SoLocal Group
SoLocal Group aims to become the trusted and local digital partner supporting business companies to accelerate their growth. To succeed in this transformation, it relies on its six key assets some of them being unique in France: media with very high audiences, powerful geolocated data, scalable technological platforms, commercial coverage throughout France, privileged partnerships with GAFAM and numerous talents (experts in data, IT development, digital marketing, etc.). SoLocal Group's activities are structured around two axes. First, a range of "full web & apps" digital services on all devices (PCs, mobiles, tablets and personal assistants), offered in the form of packs and subscriptions, ("Digital Presence", "Digital Advertising", "Digital Website"," Digital Solutions" and "Print to Digital"), and integrating a digital coaching service, to support clients success. Second, flagship owned media (PagesJaunes and Mappy) used daily by Frenchs and offering an enriching and differentiating user experience. With more than 460,000 customers across France and 2.4 billion visits on its media, the Group generated revenues of €756 million in 2017, 84% coming from Internet making it one of the leading European players in terms of online advertising revenue. SoLocal Group is listed on Euronext Paris (LOCAL). More information is available at www.solocalgroup.com.

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