About us

Xavier Barbaro is the Company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He started his career at Louis Dreyfus Communications (later known as Neuf Cegetel) in Paris in 2001, before joining Louis Dreyfus Commodities in Geneva as Attaché to the CEO, where he was in charge of the business plan and carried out several projects in Asia. He then joined Direct Energie in 2007 where he was in charge of Business Development before founding Neoen in 2008. Xavier Barbaro graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Stéphanie Levan began her career at Ernst & Young where she conducted audit and consulting assignments for five years with several listed French and foreign companies. She then joined the Plastic Omnium Group, an automotive equipment manufacturer and specialist in urban waste collection and management, as group consolidation Director and then internal audit Director. In September 2004, she joined the Louis Dreyfus group as group consolidation Director and, at the time of a spin-off, became the Chief Financial Officer of the Impala group (formerly Louis Dreyfus S.A.S). Her role in the consolidation department of the Louis Dreyfus group and then of the Impala  group has given her a thorough understanding of the Group since the creation of the Company in 2008. Stéphanie Levan is a graduate of the EDHEC and is a certified public accountant.

Simon Veyrat has been business manager at the Impala Group since October 1, 2018, after having held a variety of roles at commercial law firms in the context of his studies. He is a graduate of the École des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Paris (HEC Paris) in business management and law. He also holds a degree in business law and taxation from Sorbonne Paris 1 University, and is a qualified attorney (holding a Certificat d’Aptitude à la Profession d’Avocat (CAPA)).

Vanessa Giraud started her career in 1996 in the international banking sector (Société Générale in Germany and then General Inspection of Crédit Agricole Indosuez), before continuing in strategy consulting for Arthur D. Little in 2001 (Telecom/Internet/Media/Electronics, Pharma, Oil & Gas practices). Vanessa joined Caisse des Dépôts’ private equity division in 2004 and then Bpifrance in 2013. She is currently Director of the Environmental Impact Funds Unit and the Director of Strategy & ESG of the Private Equity Division. Vanessa is a graduate of HEC, holds a certificate as a company Director from the French Institute of Directors (IFA), and is a Knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit.

Christophe Gégout began his career in 2001 in the General Directorate of the French Treasury and then, from 2003, in the Budget Department. In 2007, he became an advisor to the Ministry of Finance. He joined the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in April 2009 as Chief Financial Officer and became Deputy Managing Director in September 2015. He has also been Chairman of CEA Investissement, a subsidiary of the CEA, since January 2010. In  2018, he became the new President of the Alliance Nationale de Coordination de la Recherche pour l’Énergie (Ancre), and then Senior Investment Director at Meridiam, a global leader in public infrastructure investment and asset management serving the community. He is now a partner and Chief Executive Officer of Yotta Capital Partners S.A.S. He is a graduate of École Polytechnique, Sciences Po Paris and ENSAE (École Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Économique).

Helen Lee Bouygues began her career in 1995 with J.P. Morgan, as an associate in M&A in New York and Hong Kong. In 1997, she was appointed Development Director of Pathnet, a telecommunications services provider based in Washington, DC, and then in 2000 joined Cogent Communications where she worked as Treasurer, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer until 2004. She was then appointed partner at Alvarez & Marsal in Paris, which she left in 2010 to create her own consulting firm. In 2014, she joined McKinsey & Company, where she became a partner in charge of the Recovery and Transformation Services department. Since February 2018, she has been President of LB Associés, a consulting firm. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science, magna cum laude, from Princeton University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Bertrand Dumazy is a graduate of ESCP Europe and holds an MBA (with distinction) from Harvard Business School. He began his career in 1994 as a consultant with Bain & Company, first in Paris and later in Los Angeles. He then became Investment Director at BC Partners in 1999. In 2002 he joined the Neopost group, where he was Director of marketing and strategy. He was appointed Chairman and CEO of Neopost France in 2005 and then Chief Financial Officer of the group in 2008. In 2011, he was appointed CEO of the Deutsch group, a world leader in high performance connectors, a position he held until the group was acquired by TE Connectivity. In 2012, he joined the Materis group as Executive Vice President and then CEO and eventually Chairman and CEO of the renamed Cromology Group. He was appointed CEO of the Edenred group in October 2015.

Jacques Veyrat began his career in 1989 at the Industrial Restructuring Interdepartmental Committee (treasury department), where he was rapporteur until 1991. From 1991 to 1993, he was deputy secretary general of the Paris Club, and subsequently became a technical advisor to the Ministry of Transportation Equipment, Tourism and the Sea as of 1993. In 1995, he joined the Louis Dreyfus group as Managing Director of Louis Dreyfus Armateurs until 1998, before becoming Chairman and CEO of Louis Dreyfus Communications (Neuf Cegetel) from 1998 to 2008 and Chairman and CEO of the Louis Dreyfus group until 2011. Since 2011, he has been Chairman of Impala SAS. He is a graduate of the École Polytechnique and Collège des Ingénieurs, and is an engineer of the Corps des Ponts et Chaussées.