Pierre Danon

Pierre Danon (born 1956) is a French senior corporate executive director, presently Chairman of Ypso Holding and of Altice B2B Holding (respective holdings of french operators Numericable and Completel).

Education

Danon earned a degree in civil engineering from the École nationale des ponts et chaussées, a Master's in Law degree from the Faculte de Droit Paris II Assas, and an MBA from the Institut Superieur des Affaires (HEC School of Management MBA, Paris)

Pierre holds a degree in civil engineering from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, a law degree from the Faculté de Droit Paris II Assas and an MBA from HEC.

Career

Danon began his career in 1981 as a financial analyst at Rank Xerox. For the next 19 years, he held a variety of roles including general manager of Belgium, general manager of Benelux, Switzerland and Austria, senior vice president of Xerox Production Systems, president of Xerox Channels Group in Rochester, New York and then president of Xerox Europe based in the UK. For the next four and a half years, he served as chief executive of retail at BT Group plc

On 30 September 2005, "Le Figaro" announced that Danon, then Group Chief Operating Officer at Capgemini, had been interviewed for the President's position of Accor. In a statement on 7 October, CapGemini fired Danon after it was revealed that Accor cofounder and board chairman Gerard Pelisson, who reportedly wanted to give the position to his nephew Gilles Pélisson, told Capgemini about Danon's acceptance of the job. Gilles Pélisson was appointed in October 2005 as CEO of Accor, while Gerard Pélisson was forced to resign from the board

Danon then joined JPMorgan as a senior advisor, offering clients in the telecommunications, media and technology sectors advice across a range of corporate strategy issues and seek to introduce the firm to new clients

In May 2006, Danon was named as incoming Chairman of Eircom, the Irish telecoms company

In June 2008, Pierre Danon has been appointed as the new CEO of the French telecom companies Numericable and Completel.

In December 2010, Pierre Danon was appointed as Chairman of Ypso Holding and of Altice B2B Holding (respective holdings of Numericable and Completel). He was replaced by Eric Denoyer as CEO of Numericable and Completel.

Pierre Danon is the Chairman of the Numericable-Completel group since January 2011. He was appointed CEO of the group in Paris in September 2008. This is the fibre based third fixed operator in France. It has a quadruple play cable operation for the 9 million homes passed residential market coupled with strong B to B capabilities and customer base; it is backed by well financed and very competent private shareholders such as Patrick Drahi, Cinven and Carlyle.

In May 2008 Pierre was elected Vice-Chairman of the TDC Board of Directors. TDC is the leading provider of communication solutions in Denmark with a strong Nordic focus. TDC is listed on the OMX Nordic Stock Exchange and employs more than 12,000 people. The annual turn-over is approx. DKK 30 Billion.

Since November 2005, Pierre Danon, aged 55, is a Senior Advisor to JPMorgan’s EMEA Chairman, Walter Gubert. He provides advice and expertise to JPM’s team and clients across Europe, focusing on the Telecom, Media and High Technology (TMT) sector. He is a member of the JPMorgan Advisory Council.

Previously & since August 2006 Pierre had become Chairman of Eircom, following the successful €4.8 billion takeover led by Babcock & Brown Capital. Eircom employs nearly 7,000 people and delivers mobile and fixed communications services for residential and corporate customers in the Republic of Ireland. He stepped down from this role in November 2008.

From April 2004 until March 2008, he was a non-executive director of EMap Plc, a multi media UK-based company.

In March 2005, he was named Chief Operating Officer of the Capgemini Group, one of the world’s foremost providers of Consulting, Technology and Outsourcing services which reported 2004 global revenues of €6.3 billion and employs approximately 60,000 people worldwide. He successfully turned around CapGemini’s ailing US operation and energized the company’s global delivery strategy. During his tenure, the share price went up 43%.

Prior to joining Capgemini, Pierre Danon was appointed CEO of BT Retail in September 2000 where he was responsible for managing BT’s 21 million UK customer relationships, ranging from residential consumers to major corporate clients and government. BT Retail employs 40,000 people and has an annual turnover of £13.4 billion. He was a director of the BT plc Board.

Before joining BT, Pierre Danon was President of Xerox Europe, the €5bn operations arm of Xerox Corporation employing nearly 20,000 people. He was also a member of the company’s worldwide strategy committee, driving its transformation in Europe as a services and solutions business. Previously he had a 20 years career at Xerox covering diverse areas in finance, sales, marketing, customer service and research and development. It started in France initially, and since 1990 continued across various European countries and in the US.

Miscellaneous

He is married, and has two sons. He is married to Laurence Danon, CEO of La Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild Corporate Finance in Paris. They have two children David who has completed his diploma from HEC and is a senior associate at Bain Capital in London and Felix studying at HEC.