NFC Times Exclusive–People on the Move:
France-based vendor Gemalto has made changes to its corporate structure, creating a separate division for platforms and services and appointing executive Philippe Vallée as chief operating officer.
Vallée, long-time head of the company’s largest division, mobile communication, becomes the No. 2 executive under CEO Olivier Piou. Vallée oversees the operations of the company’s new platforms and services and separate products divisions.
The big vendor has not announced the changes, though they appear to have taken effect around the first of the year or before and include restructuring of the company’s five former business segments, such as mobile communication, secure transactions, identity and machine-to-machine. These apparently would be replaced by two divisions: products–mainly smart cards; and platforms and services.
Vallée originally began his career in the industry with Gemalto co-progenitor Gemplus in the early 1990s. Piou had headed Axalto. The two companies merged to form Gemalto in 2006
Gemalto is by far the industry’s largest smart card supplier, and a major player in security platforms. The new structure move is seen, at least in part, as Gemalto’s effort to continue to build its platforms and services business, which accounted for 17.5% of the company’s more than €2.2 billion (US$2.9 billion) in revenue in 2012 and 18.4% in the first half of 2013.
Philippe Cambriel, former head of Gemalto’s second largest segment, secure transactions, was moved to a regional post, as president of Europe, Mediterranean and CIS.
The former president of Gemalto’s Asia region, Teck Lee Tan, is believed to be taking over platforms and services, while Frédéric Vasnier, who managed Gemalto’s SIM card and secure element business, will take over products. Jacques Seneca, former head of Gemalto’s ID segment, retired last summer and is now a consultant.
Meanwhile, another smart card industry veteran hailing from Gemplus, Thian Yee Chua, who co-founded what is considered to be the NFC industry’s first trusted service manager, Cassis International, has departed France-based vendor Safran Morpho. Morpho acquired Singapore-based Cassis in mid-2012, and Chua became senior vice president and head of convergence services.
Chua led what is considered to be the world’s first TSM project, a mobile-contactless Visa application launched by South Korea’s SK Telecom in 2003. But he was also an early backer of a simplified approach to TSM services that is now gaining wider support in the industry.
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Among Topics Covered:
Gemalto’s new structure and appointment of Philippe Vallée to chief operating officer Move away from business segment divisions to more emphasis on platforms and services Other personnel changes at Gemalto Chua’s views on future of TSM business Kai Grassie’s planned move from Giesecke & Devrient Impact on Gemalto share price from Visa and MasterCard HCE announcementsAmong companies and organizations mentioned:
Gemalto
Safran Morpho
Giesecke & Devrient
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