Biography, Mr. Yves Blanc

Director Strategic Planning and Institutional Relations, Eutelsat

Yves BLANC, born in 1959, joined Eutelsat in 2002 as Director of Institutional Relations, and later enlarged his responsibilities to encompass the Strategic Planning activities of the company, bringing a broad experience of both Government Affairs and the Aerospace and Digital Television industries.

He graduated in 1981 from Ecole Polytechnique, in 1984 from Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (Ingénieur du Corps des Ponts), and the same year from Université Paris-Dauphine (DEA d'Economie). His career began at Direction des Industries Electroniques et de l'Informatique (DIELI) of Ministère de l'Industrie. In 1987, he joined Ministère de l'Economie et des Finances, where he was in charge of export financing support for the aerospace and defense industries at Direction des Relations des Economiques Extérieures (DREE).

Yves BLANC also was a staff member of the Minister of Budget in 1991-1992. Yves BLANC then joined Thomson-CSF (now Thalès) in 1994, as Vice-President for Strategic Planning for the Electronics Communication Division, and in this position acquired from Matra Communications, merged into Thomson-CSF, and ran the first Business Unit in Thomson-CSF in charge of professional digital television (Thalès Broadcast & Multimedia).

With Thomson Multimedia from 1999 till 2001, Yves BLANC was Vice-President in charge of the New Components division, with the task to structure the Group's strategy and business development actions in the field of Flat screens, Digital Storage modules, Interactive Television software, Broadband access technologies, etc. Yves BLANC was in particular a founder and a Board member of CacheVision, a joint-venture between Thomson Multimedia and Seagate Technologies, headquartered in San José, California, dedicated to the development of Hard Disk Drives-based Digital Storage modules for video applications.