Octave Klaba appoints Michel Paulin as CEO of OVH Group

Octave Klaba appointed Michel Paulin as Chief Executive Officer of the OVH group. Michel Paulin has spent most of his career in the IT, telecoms and internet industries. He was CEO of Neuf Cegetel, for which he led the IPO, Méditel (now Orange Maroc) and SFR. His nomination comes as OVH embarks on a new stage in its development. Michel Paulin will lead the execution of this “Smart Cloud” strategic plan, which aims to consolidate OVH’s role as an alternative leader in Cloud. This plan will be presented at the forthcoming OVH Summit, on 18 October 2018.

Octave Klaba commented: “With the benefit of his experience and his leadership, Michel Paulin will help us to accelerate the implementation of our new strategic plan - with him as CEO and myself as Chairman of the Board. I am convinced that his personal qualities, combined with the strong corporate culture of our teams, will ensure the group’s development.”

Michel Paulin commented: “It is a great honour for me to join OVH. I am looking forward to lead this team of 2,500 women and men on four continents, with its strong and unique culture of innovation at the service of its clients. I am delighted to work with Octave; everyone knows his vision, his entrepreneurial strength and his great humanity.”

In February 2017, Octave Klaba took on the role of CEO again, to implement the “Next Level” plan. Growth in OVH’s business was reinforced through its first major acquisition (of vCloudAir, from VMware), the group’s new business in the US and in Asia Pacific, the creation of 12 new datacentres and the introduction of an innovative Cloud product and services strategy. OVH thereby rises to the challenges of data sovereignty and the frontal competition of the GAFAM and Chinese players as Alibaba or Tencent.

With management of the OVH group entrusted to Michel Paulin, Octave Klaba will henceforth be able to devote himself fully to the role of Chairman of the Board. “The market for Cloud will experience worldwide consolidation in the coming years and I want OVH, the European leader, to play its role to the full. The Group is only just starting its expansion outside Europe and I will bring all my experience to bear to accelerate its development. As an entrepreneur, I also want to work on promoting our culture, our values and our methods to create collaborative businesses. I am utterly convinced that Europe needs to build and develop an ecosystem of European companies, to retain digital independence against the Americans and the Chinese.”

About
Specializing in the cloud and internet infrastructure, OVH offers innovative products and services based on three universes: Web, Dedicated and Cloud. Since its founding in 1999, OVH has established itself as a partner for hundreds of thousands of professionals worldwide. OVH owes its success to a development model based on innovation and complete control of the supply chain, from server production and the maintaining of their own infrastructure, to customer assistance. For each service and solution proposed, OVH is able to ensure stable and reliable offers to its customers at the best quality to price ratio.

Contact
Héloïse KADDOUR - +33 680 069 995 - heloise.kaddour@corp.ovh.com