Meet our leadership team
Jacques BONIFAYCEO &
Co-founder
Bertrand SALOMONDeputy CEO
& Co-founder
Philippe VIGNEAUVP Business
Development
Olivier LATAPIECTIO
Florence HUGONCFO & Head of
Procurement
Sandra MARTINHR
Director
Marie-Julie LE GUENB2C Marketing
& Support Operations
Director
Romain DURANDR&D Director
& Co-founder
Jacques BONIFAY
CEO &
Co-founder
Jacques is co-founder and President of Transatel
Since Transatel's creation in 2000, Jacques Bonifay has been the CEO of Transatel. He has managed several strategic changes to adapt to the difficult environment of the MVNO market. 22 years after its creation, Transatel continues to grow with more than €50M in revenues and high profitability. As Transatel has always promoted inclusion and diversity, the company has over 250 employees and no less than 40 different nationalities.
In 2012, Jacques was elected President of MVNO Europe for the first time and has been re-elected every year since. Within this association which gathers the main European MVNOs, Jacques oversees lobbying initiatives towards the European Parliament, DG COMP and DG CONNECT. In addition and since 2009, Jacques is President of Alternative Télécom (formerly Alternative Mobile), the French association of alternative fixed and mobile operators. In this capacity, he defends the interests of alternative operators in front of the Government, Parliament, ARCEP and the Competition Authority.
Jacques started his career with the Matra Group (now Airbus) as an engineer and then as a sales manager for space equipment and then decided to do an MBA at INSEAD. After his MBA, Jacques joined McKinsey & Company as a senior consultant. Jacques went back to the industry and headed the Strategy & Business Development activity of Alcatel's Professional & Consumer division.
In 2000, Jacques decided to become an entrepreneur by creating Transatel with Bertrand Salomon. Between 2000 and 2007, they led several capital increases and several share buybacks between 2012 and 2016. In 2019, Jacques and Bertrand finalized the sale of Transatel to the Japanese group NTT.
Jacques holds an MBA from INSEAD and an engineering degree from ENSERG/INPG in Grenoble (France).
Bertrand SALOMON
Deputy CEO
& Co-founder
Bertrand leads the design of the award-winning MVNE platform and the product development roadmap. He also manages our relationships for strategic projects with mobile network operators, service partners, and key customers worldwide.
Prior to founding Transatel, Bertrand was at Bouygues Telecom France, first as the Manager for New Products & Services, then as Director of the (nascent) Mobile Internet activity. Before that, Bertrand worked for Sagem in France and in the Silicon Valley (California), in technical development and project management.
Bertrand holds an engineering degree from EPFL (Polytechnic, Lausanne Switzerland), and an MBA degree from INSEAD (France).
Philippe VIGNEAU
VP Business
Development
Philippe leads the global partnership development for all our business segments, from MVNO, to connected vehicles, mobile devices, and the industrial IoT.
Having been instrumental in Transatel’s current position of leading European MVNO enabler, Philippe initiated and now spearheads the IoT Connect business development activities. In this role, he’s helping companies in aeronautics, automotive, car-sharing, construction, blockchain, chemical, and heating equipment, … connect their objects globally and securely and reach their industry 4.0 objectives.
Philippe develops new business model concepts to better serve our client's objectives, such as the MVNO model for connected vehicles and for a fully integrated Fixed-Mobile Convergence. As a pioneer in MVNO, he took part in the first MVNO launches in Northern Europe in 1999 and has participated in more than 100 MVNO inceptions throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. Prior to joining Transatel close to 20 years ago, Philippe was at American Express where he was in charge of the corporate commercial partnership development.
Olivier LATAPIE
CTIO
As Chief Telecom and Information system Officer, Olivier leads our IT and Telecom technical teams.
He carries over 25 years of experience in the IT and Telco industries. He started his career as a developer and project manager at Steria (software firm) before moving to Bouygues Telecom where he successively held various IT positions including Head of different development teams, Head of Operations, and Head of Governance. Prior to joining Transatel in 2016, he was Head of Development at Agirc-Arrco.
Olivier is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique (X89) and Telecom ParisTech (94).
Florence HUGON
CFO & Head of
Procurement
Florence leads our Finance, Sales administration, and Procurement teams.
As CFO, she oversees the business performance and strategic financial planning, M&A as well as the liaison and reporting with the different NTT entities. Florence joined Transatel in 2009 as a financial controller and assisted in the company’s continuous growth over the years. This position made her a key player in the NTT acquisition of Transatel, especially during the due-diligence phase.
In addition to her role at Transatel, Florence coaches entrepreneurs in the early stages of their startups.
Florence graduated from Skema Business School with a Corporate Finance major.
Sandra MARTIN
HR
Director
After several experiences in Consulting, Sandra joined Transatel in 2010. In a context of strong growth and competition, she has contributed to the development of the company from start-up to SME, then to an integrated subsidiary of an international company (NTT) with a turnover of 100 billion euros. Her Human Resources contribution was also key in the due diligence conducted by NTT at the time of the acquisition of Transatel.
The transition from 50 to 250 employees required in-depth work both on recruiting employees with rare and sought-after skills, as well as on developing their skills and adapting them to an increasingly international context. On the strength of having helped Transatel build a multicultural team, one of the main challenges has been to continuously maintain the corporate culture around innovation, agility and entrepreneurship. The industrialization and digitization of the HR function are now at the heart of the strategy, in addition to supporting the managerial line in meeting the challenges of the years to come.
Sandra is daily inspired by this quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “The most beautiful job is above all uniting men.“
Marie-Julie LE GUEN
B2C Marketing
& Support Operations
Director
Marie-Julie leads Transatel’s retail activities. Since 2005, she has had a solid track record including project, product roadmap, as well as customer service management, which gave her an in-depth understanding of Transatel’s business. Today, Marie-Julie leads our B2C activities including Ubigi, Transatel DataSIM, Transatel Mobile, and LeFrenchMobile brands.
Marie-Julie is an engineering graduate from ENSEIRB (École Nationale Supérieure d’Electronique, Informatique et Radiocommunications de Bordeaux), with a major in software for networks and telecommunications. She also holds a business degree from HEC Paris (Hautes Études Commerciales) and a Masters in Management and New Technologies from Telecom ParisTech (École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications).
Romain DURAND
R&D Director
& Co-founder
Romain is in charge of both the R&D and the Innovation programs.
Prior to co-founding Transatel, Romain was responsible for Value Added Services at Alcatel, where he focused on subjects related to security, mobile Internet, and m-business. He represented Alcatel in organizations for standardization such as ETSI and WAP Forum. Romain also spent 2 years in Japan where he was in charge of a technological survey regarding telecommunications.
Romain has an engineering degree from ENSEEIHT (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Électronique, d’Électrotechnique, d’Informatique et d’Hydraulique de Toulouse).