Lionel Merrien | VP, Strategy and Innovation
Lionel Merrien is Vice President of Strategy and Innovation for Thales Cyber Security Products. In this role, Lionel is guiding technology innovation and market analysis, channeling and validating business innovation and coordinating the strategic business plan for the organization. His team also oversees strategic partnerships with major cloud providers and strategic go-to-market activities for new value propositions, such as transformation to SaaS offering and developing value propositions for new vertical markets.
Lionel has 25 years of expertise in developing and launching innovative solutions, with a strong focus on security. During his career he has been involved with nearly all aspects of the creation of new products, including technical consulting, development, product management, marketing, solution sales and go-to-market. He has led diverse teams of business and technical experts to discover, validate and launch several initiatives, either bound from pure technical innovation or initiated from business transformation.
Prior to this position, Lionel led the Business Development activities of the business for five years, with the creation of strategy partnerships with major cloud players, and the launch of several innovative offerings. Prior to this, he lead the solution sales team of Gemalto for North America, in the domain of Telecom and Banking, where he oversaw the commercial launch of subscription management platform and mobile payment, among other things. Lionel has a background in mechanical engineering from France, and is based in Canada, where he has been living for the past 20 years.