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Frédéric Lasnier
Title: President&Chief Executive Officer
Bio: After a quick passage in a national marketing service company, Frederic Lasnier founded Pentalog with four colleagues, academics like himself. During a period of economic stagnation (in 1993).
In 1995, he decided to open permanently the capital of Pentalog to the participation of his employees. This participation now has reached 56%. It was a political vision that he shared with the founding members. Starting from 1997, Pentalog exported their first services outside of France. The percentage of foreign activities subsequently reached 60% in 2006.
In 1999, as part of a large software project (10 000 man-days in J2EE), he made his first trip to Romania and laid the foundation for the Pentalog policy of European "low cost". In 2005, he initiated the creation of BPO services (Business Process Outsourcing) and offered a New Business Model to Pentalog High Tech. In 2006, with the help of Ausy, one of the 5 most important players in the French market of outsourced R&D services, he created Pentalog Technology, a joint venture between Ausy and Pentalog, co-owned equally by the two partners. The Joint Venture aims to provide low cost but high quality R & D to global players. Pentalog took operational control of this alliance.
In 2008, Pentalog Deutschland, the German subsidiary of the group was created.
In 2009, Frederic created Pentalog Vietnam.
In all these areas, the management is provided from Orleans and it is here where 70% of the consolidated value is held.
Frederic is the father of the adaptation of the "design to cost" for intellectual services in France.
Aymeric Libeau
Title: CIO - Vice President Infrastructure & R&D
Bio: The management of infrastructure and R&D Aymeric is supervising includes all the technical aspects (for the company as well as for our customers), whether they are related to corporate needs, resources to complete a project, R&D activities or quality control.
Aymeric is the one who defines the strategy of development of our infrastructure and information system.
This former peacekeeper has led several international operations, in particular in Eastern Europe. He remains operational for some of our customers, whether as an expert in architecture, a project director or consultant in the choice of technologies.

Monica Jiman
Title: COO - Vice President Business Development
Bio: Monica graduated in Marketing and Production from the University of Orleans, and joined Pentalog as a trainee.
She then became the Manager of the branch office in Bucharest, today employing 50 people in the field of outsourced software development on the offshore as well as local market in Romania.
In May 2009 she became Chief Operational Officer. Monica is now in charge of operations in Vietnam, Eastern Europe, France and Germany, involving over 300 employees. She manages sales and business lines, the creation of new branch offices, recruitment, human resources and the responsibility of contractual operations.
Alexandra Mondanel
Title: International Operations Officer
Bio: After a 4-month internship within the Pentalog Orleans Team, Alexandra was recruited to develop the company's international activities. She holds a postgraduate degree in International Business and foreign languages and she is European to the core: her mother is German and her father is French; she attended a British University, and used to work for the German subsidiary of a French company before joining Pentalog in 2005. Her ability to speak four languages will be determining to find partners all accross Europe.

Sophie Lelarge
Title: WW Sales and BL Director
Bio: Sophie is the group's Sales Director and manages the 3 Business Lines: Information Systems, Embedded Systems and BPO.
She ensures the dialogue with consultants and project managers, as well as the monitoring of our commitments, in coordination with the project managers.



Pierre Peutin
Title: Head of Business Line for Information Systems
Bio: Pierre entered Pentalog as a developer, in 1999. He has worked on web and client/servers projects, on missions of medium and long duration in both France and Belgium. After several years as a developer, Pierre oriented himself towards Business Intelligence by participating in various reporting projects for customers like PSA Peugeot Citroën, Loxam or the ACTICALL group. Later, Pierre became Project Leader for specific application developments, managing teams of 1 to 7 people based in France and offshore for Pentalog. Pierre then naturally served as an offshore Project Director before taking on the responsibility of the Business Line for Information Systems.
Pierre is presently responsible for writing business proposals, monitoring existing customers, commitment control vis-à-vis our customers on projects, compliance with Pentalog quality system procedures and control and optimization of expenses for the Business Line.
Mickaël Hiver
Title: Head of Business Lines for Embedded Systems & BPO
Bio: Mickaël entered Pentalog as a Network Administrator in February 1997 with the aim to gain global understanding of information technology in order to assist and guide users in meeting their real needs. For 8 years he was an in-house producer for Pentalog clients. With his acquired experience, Mickaël progressively left production to become first a Project Manager, then Project Director and finally the Head of Business Lines for Embedded Systems & BPO.
Mickaël is a hands-on and open person, with an acute sense of organization and priorities. Through his assistance and counseling he gives his clients and prospective clients the opportunity to focus calmly on their actual core business.
Eric Gouin
Title: Administrator
Bio: Eric graduated from a renown school of Physics and Chemistry in Paris. While he was a student he used to develop websites related to his student activities.
After two research internships within a French company producing mobile phone components in the Sophia-Antipolis Technopole, he joined the IT world in which he held several key positions.
He now is a finance and management control consultant.

Aleth Delcenserie
Title: Quality Manager
Bio: Associate-founder of Pentalog and board member, Aleth Delcenserie first evolved in the graphics department of the company. Gifted with a strong sense of organization and a taste for detail, she conducted with rigorous methodology publishing projects and electronic media for over ten years, and launched the Pentalog BPO-DTP sector at the end of 2005.
From September 2007, Aleth has been responsible for the definition and for the implementation of the Pentalog Quality Policy, leading to the ISO 9001:2008 certification of the group, on December 24, 2008.
As the Director of Quality Control, Aleth is now based in Moldova since 1 January 2009, where she now shares her time between coaching project managers in implementing effectiveness control and the progress of Pentalog Quality.
Tuan Nguyenquoc
Title: Office Manager Hanoi
Bio: Tuan holds a Master's Degree in Information Systems and New Technologies from the Paris-Dauphine University, and gained some professional experience in France before returning to Vietnam to start his offshore adventure. He became a team leader in a Datawarehouse deployment project in Africa for a telecom provider, and witnessed violent riots in Kinshasa during a couple of days.
Following this project, Tuan turned to a Marcom position as the offshore business development manager of a big Vietnamese IT services company.
While reading the Pentalog blog Tuan became acquainted with Frederic and they met during Frederic's first visit in Vietnam. He was immediately convinced by Pentalog's business model and now manages the development of the first Pentalog office in Vietnam.
Vodka & suit + snow boots

I never thought one day of attending business meetings wearing snow boots… In Russia, it is common. And rare are the few people who do not wear the fur hat, it is THE essential accessory for your survival on the streets of St Petersburg as well as in the Ural countryside in winter. There are hats for everyone, of all colors, leather, rabbit skin, felt, with brilliants, pearls, but in any case, always something that goes with your coat! Going up Nevsky Prospect in the early morning, amid all these people wrapped up in their own way, going to work with a firm step, reminded me of my literature courses in highschool, and the grotesque characters that Gogol portrayed in a satirical tone in his St. Petersburg Short Stories, which I reread at the moment of this trip: Akaky Akakyevich Bachmatchkine, petty official shivering in his worn coat on the way to the Ministry (The Overcoat) or Major Kovalyov who awoke one morning without a nose (The Nose)…

In Perm, after we had been introduced to the ritual of tasting the “Ruski Standard” (remember to drink only half of your glass and then leave it on the table is very rude to the person who invited you to drink), Denis and his colleagues talked to us about survival skills in the taiga, that we (thankfully) did not have the time to practice. Besides these very good moments that made me completely forget my prejudices about Russian austerity. Anyway, our friends both in Perm and St. Petersburg demonstrated to us their strong commitment to international development and improving their technical and business skills from every point of view. This was an encouraging attitude when thinking of creating a prospective partnership in this country, despite the past legacy which seems to continue to weigh heavily on professional relationships. One entrepreneur explained to us how he launched his business at the time you could read signs saying “No business is no good” in the streets. Today the dream of Russian entrepreneurs is to do business with France, Germany …

Fred spoke of the language problems in his post; it’s true that the use of English is not yet systematic amongst IT engineers. But after thinking about it, overall I didn’t feel any more difficulty in communicating than I did in India, where people spoke English well enough but with a “local” colored accent and with various expressions which I didn’t have the habit to use. I will not speak of French language (the “Alliance Francaise” courses in Perm seemed to be attended mostly by young women from well-to-do families) but on the other hand we met German-speaking people, which is an additional positive point. The language problem is of course less obvious in Saint Petersburg which is a doorway to the Western world, a very cosmopolitan and modern city of 7 million inhabitants, with 120 universities and engineering schools. It is probably the 2nd largest city in the world for engineering outsourcing, maybe even the 1st when compared to Bangalore in terms of the percentage of the population going to university.

So in conclusion, many interesting things to think about after this trip, both in terms of SAP, as well as embedded systems or the opening of new markets in Scandinavia. We were really impressed by the people we encountered. Russia almost seems an obvious choice for the future development of our business and the presence of Pentalog. These projects came at the right moment; the France-Russia year was inaugurated yesterday in Paris… We will return with great pleasure to these frosty regions, but so welcoming!

Pictures can be seen here: Perm & Ural, Saint Petersburg

Pentalog, Russia, an SAP proposition

Alex and I took the road to Russia recently. We were very far away from what we know as the geographical borders of Europe, at the foot of the Urals, to assess the possibilities of a relationship with one of the leading Russian specialists in SAP.

I would first like to thank them for their incredible hospitality. We did some ice fishing in a frozen river, visited an ice cave… drank lots of vodka, and ate very well wherever we went. In this regard, I would like to emphasize the quality of Russian cuisine, with salmon and other fish, pickled or smoked, caviar, and delicious meats. In short, even the most demanding gourmets among you would not have been disappointed in Russia.

Professionally, we really appreciated, again, the quality of the people we encountered. I would first like to thank Evgenia, Denis, Maxim, Evgeniy and Victor for having accompanied us every hour of our journey. Their professional availability was incredible and I would like to note this amongst these young developers, project managers and managers.

Yes, there were a few difficulties and if I did not mention them, you would not believe me ;-) Both Alex and I noticed the same difficulty with foreign languages, as I have previously mentioned concerning Morocco and Ukraine. English is not yet the universal language and we definitely need to encourage the use of the French language if we are to go further… you see were I am going? ;-) Anyway, I can assert that nothing in the world, reaches the level of Romania and Moldova when it comes to finding people who can converse both in English and French.

I cannot in fact, help thinking of our 100 Moldovan employees, of whom 80% are francophone, almost 100% English-speaking… and 100% speak Russian.

Before starting the SAP adventure, I promised myself to prepare a “killer proposition” for this market. We will only propose the best-in-class services, whatever their nature. Otherwise, we should not get involved. Have we found this offer for SAP? I do not know yet. Alex and our market intelligence team are still going through the pre-qualification stage looking for at least one other operator in another geographical area, before making a final decision, whether to go or not to go for SAP, and / or, whether to go alone or accompanied?

Posted on Fri., 5 Feb. 2010 13:06 by Frédéric LASNIER (210 day(s) old)
Tags: For friends, Nearshore, Offshore, Russia and ex-USSR
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