Eric LABAYE

Bio

Éric Labaye is the Chairman of the board of Eutelsat and of the supervisory board of Ekimetrics. He is a co-founder of IDEL Partners, an advisory firm focusing on major development and transformation topics, senior advisor at Antin Infrastructure Partners, and independent member of the board of Rexel. Since April 2024, he has chaired the Supervisory Committee of Investments for the Future in France. He is also a member of the board of Generation France, a nonprofit organization that develops training programs for young people distanced from the labor market, that he co-founded and chaired in 2018.

From 2018 to 2023, he was the Chairman and President of École Polytechnique, the elite French engineering school. In 2019, he led the creation of Institut Polytechnique de Paris, a top 40 global institution that brings together 5 leading French engineering schools, École Polytechnique, ENSTA Paris, ENSAE Paris, Télécom Paris and Télécom SudParis, for which he became the first Chairman and President. He is also a member of the International Advisory Boards of ESSEC and the University of Waterloo (Canada) and of the Strategic Council of the School of Public Affairs of Sciences Po Paris.

Prior to his appointment as Chairman and President of École Polytechnique and Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Éric Labaye was a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company and the Chairman of the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the firm's business and economics research arm. He was the Managing Director of the French office of McKinsey & Co from 2002 to 2010, then led the firm’s Global Knowledge and Communication as a member of the Global Executive Committee. He was also a member of the firm’s Shareholders’ council (Global Board of Directors) for 9 years, where he chaired the Client Committee in charge of the development strategy. He has worked for more than 30 years for international clients in the telecommunications, high-tech and industrial sectors, as well as for governments and public institutions on a variety of strategic and operational issues, including major transformation programs, growth and R&D strategies, development of agile organizations, acquisitions, post-merger management and digitalization.

He has led numerous research projects with MGI and in France on key economic topics, including growth in Europe, productivity, digitalization, the future of work, gender parity and inequalities. He was part of the expert group developing the report “How to make France an economy of technological disruption” for the French government and he chaired the working group "Carnets de Dubai" describing the innovation dynamics of AI in France for the 2021 World Expo. Éric Labaye also initiated and co-directed McKinsey's "Women Matter" research program, which, since 2007, has aimed to promote gender diversity in the senior management ranks of large companies.

Eric Labaye is a regular speaker at national and international conferences in the public, private, academic and non-governmental spheres. He was a member of the Commission “Release Growth in France” (Attali Commission) from 2007 to 2010, a member of the French Economic Commission from 2005 to 2014 and a member of the Marescaux Commission, responsible for proposing a new model for university hospitals and the implementation of University Hospital Institutes (IHU).

Éric Labaye is a graduate of École Polytechnique and Télécom Paris and holds an MBA from INSEAD with distinction (Henry Ford II Prize).