Philippe Vallee to Succeed Olivier Piou as Gemalto CEO; Alex Mandl Comments

Philippe Vallee, chief operating officer at Gemalto, will be endorsed by the board of directors to succeed Olivier Piou as the new CEO of the Amsterdam-based digital security firm, effective Sept. 1.

Piou will retire on Aug. 31 but will continue to serve on Gemaltoâ€™s board as a non-executive director, Gemalto said Tuesday.

â€œ[Piouâ€™s] vision of the fast changing security market place and his understanding of our teams’ capabilities will be very valuable for the board’s strategy evaluation, company development and succession planning responsibilities, â€ said Alex Mandl, chairman of Gemalto.

Piou led the company through its initial public offering in 2004 and the merger of Axalto and Gemplus that resulted in the creation of Gemalto in 2006.

He was a former member of the board of directors at Alcatel-Lucent and president of Eurosmart, a nonprofit association that represents that smart card industry.

Piou currently serves as vice chairman of the board of directors at Nokia.

Vallee has been with Gemalto since 1992 and has held several senior leadership roles, including chief technology officer and executive vice president of the telecommunications business unit.

The 27-year digital security industry veteran led the integration of enterprise data protection technology provider SafeNet, which Gemalto acquired from Vector Capital in 2015, and the development of cybersecurity programs for government clients.

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