Alexis de Nervaux
Group Chief Digital & Information Officer
Icade
Alexis de Nervaux, Group Chief Digital & Information Officer at Terreal, is a key player in the creation of innovative solutions for the building envelope.
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Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
After building my first PC at twelve years old, I completed a bachelor’s degree at the University of Florida, followed by a Master of Science at the University of California in San Francisco. In the early 2000s, I created a start-up in the field of video games.
I continued my career in the digitalization of business departments – first at Technip, then in consulting at CGI, and finally at Total. Subsequently, I joined the Saint-Gobain Group, where I held various positions – always in the field of information systems and digitisation, ending with the position of Chief Digital and Information Officer of a Business Unit.
Since 2018, I have held the position of Chief Digital and Information Officer at the Terreal Group.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
My way of leading my team is based on three pillars: trust, communication, and transparency.
With disruption being a key theme of the past few years, where do you see your role as a CIO going in the next 1-2 years?
Disruption is a key aspect of a Chief Digital and Information Officer’s mission. Many projects have been conducted in this sense, whether through applications intended for both our employees and customers or through Industry 4.0 projects aimed at optimising our production lines.
That said, we must not forget that disruption is intimately linked to cybersecurity. Therefore, it is essential to secure before disrupting.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in the role as a CIO?
Work hand in hand with business departments to jointly define the five-year roadmap.
Tell us a few fun facts about yourself.
I practice several so-called ‘extreme’ sports: off-road motorcycle road trips in Africa and Europe, mountaineering and snorkeling. These adventures have a spiritual dimension. They allow me to live in the present moment and to answer questions that I could not answer while sitting on my couch.
What is the value of joining an Evanta community?
Evanta has enabled me to grow my professional relationships – benchmarking with peers and gaining inspiring insights from leading companies in the industry.
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