About ASK

Board members

 

Philippe Geyres

Chairman of the Board

In 2007 and 2008 Philippe Geyres was CEO of Oberthur Card Systems, a French smart card company publicly listed on Euronext, Paris. Previously, from 1983 to 2006, he was with ST Microelectronics, most recently as Executive Vice-President of Consumer and Telecom Products, having held several management positions within Thomson-Semiconductors and SGS-Thomson, the previous incarnations of ST Microelectronics.Before ST, Mr. Geyres was with Fairchild Semiconductor in Mountain View, CA as Operations Manager of the Bipolar Division, after having joined its mother company Schlumberger as IT Director for Oil-field services. He began his professional career in 1974 with IBM at Corbeil-Essonnes, Mr. Geyres serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Trident Microsystems, a US listed company, Advanced Digital Broadcast, a Swiss company listed in Zurich and Arteris, a start-up in networking IP based in San Jose, California. Philippe Geyres graduated as an engineer from the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris in 1973.

Bruno Moreau

Cosette International

Graduated from Ecole Supérieure d'Electricité (SUPELEC), Bruno Moreau has been working in the smart card arena for more than 20 years. He founded several companies in this sector and joined Innovatron in 1987 as Business Development director, managing a venture capital activity specializing in smart cards where he was also a member of the board of smart card companies such as Gemplus and Activcard. He also initiated the early work on contactless technologies that led to ISO 14443 type B standard. In 1997 he co-founded ASK with Georges Kayanakis as Business Development Director and Deputy General Manager a post he held for 9 years. He then took over as CEO from Georges Kayanakis from January 2007 until December 2011.
 

Valéry Huot

Innovation Capital

Valéry has been instrumental in the reshaping of Innovation Capital (former CDC Innovation) since 2004. Before joining Innovation Capital, Valéry co-led the Fund-of-Funds team at Caisse des Dépôts (2001-2004). Previously, Valéry was co-head of the SME Financing Office at the French Treasury (1999-2001), with overall responsibility for private equity market development, SME financing and innovation policy promotion. He played a leading role in laying the foundations for the creation of incubators, early stage funds and public fund-of-funds. Prior to that, Valéry worked (1996-1999) for the French Defence Procurement Agency (DGA), where he was managing the technical team involved in the governmental telecommunications satellite project Syracuse III. During that time, he played a key role in negotiating with international partners and suppliers.He started his career in Australia at Telstra, the national telecom operator, working in a joint R&D department with Sydney University on CDMA mobile architectures (1994-1995). Valéry has over 13 years of experience in Private Equity and Telecoms. Valéry holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris (X90).

Léon Seynave

Troismer

Mr. Seynave is a co-founder of Mitiska NV - a Brussels listed Belgian holding company until 2008 - and a reference shareholder in 4 major retail companies (Carpetland, Brantano, AS Adventure and Fun).  He is at present a director of De Persgroep NV, Vente-Exclusive.com in Belgium, Stanhope Capital LLP and Audley Capital Advisors LLP in London. He is also an active entrepreneurial investor in various companies. Prior to starting Mitiska NV, Mr. Seynave worked as an investment banker at White, Weld & Co., New York and Credit Suisse First Boston in London and Tokyo.  Mr. Seynave holds a degree in Commercial Engineering from the University of Leuven, Belgium and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Commerce and Finance, USA. 

Terrence Annamunthodo

Equimax

For the last 15 years, Terrence Annamunthodo has worked with high level international clients providing investment management and advice. He is a Securities and Futures Commission licensed investment manager and advisor in Hong Kong. He is a qualified Canadian lawyer. He has lived and worked in China and speaks Mandarin. Terrence Annamunthodo is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School in California and Ottawa University.

 

Michel Desbard

Blue Sky Capital

Before joining Innovation Capital in 2003, Michel Desbard was venture partner at Viventures where he was focused on Trans-Atlantic information technologies and telecommunications investments. He was also a board member in several companies among which Xemics, a semiconductor company which was acquired by Semtech in 2005, and LEA which was acquired by HF Company in 2005. In 1987, he founded Bluesky Capital, a business angel fund, focused on IT and eCommerce companies.
Previously, Michel founded T.Sqware (network processing start up) in the Silicon Valley in 1996, with lead investors being Walden International, Alta Partners and Sofinnova Ventures. T.sqware was acquired by Globespan in May 2000. Prior to that, Michel was CEO of Matra Semiconductor, which he joined in 1983 as a COO and became CEO in 1989. Matra semiconductor was acquired by Temic, (Daimler Benz Group) in 1992.
Michel started his career in Thomson group as internal auditor in 1971 and then joined Fairchild semiconductor in California in 1981, as financial controller for 2 years before joining Matra in 1983.
Michel holds a BS in finance from Paris VI University.