Nicolas De Cordes,
Upp.com
Flowminder's OPAL programme - Advisory Board member
Nicolas is Chief Commercial Officer at Upp.com, a fibre to the premises operator across the east of England, with strong ESG ethos. As part of his role he also works on embedding the company initiatives on positive social and environmental impacts as an essential component of its core business. Before joining Upp he was Vice President Marketing Anticipation for the Orange Group and as part of that role, has also been leading the Data for Development initiatives of Orange in Ivory-Coast and in Sénégal, and contributing to the efforts to use Data for Climate crisis mitigation at COP 23. Nicolas was a member of the World Economic Forum’s Council on “The Future of Humanitarian System” and on the “Data-Driven Development” Council. He was a Board member of Paris21 at OCDE, and served on the UN Secretary-General Independent Expert Advisory Group on the “Data Revolution for Development”. He worked in the past in various strategy and operational marketing positions for affiliates and for the Group in Belgium, in the UK and in France. Before joining Orange, he worked as a consultant for Accenture and The Boston Consulting Group. He is a graduate from Ecole Polytechnique of Brussels, owner of patents in BigData, the internet of things and in 3D Printing, and was a co-founder of Digital Forming, a UK based start-up in Co-Design and 3D printing.
Companies accumulate and manage data because it can create a competitive advantage for them... It is time we make some of these data available to create a competitive advantage against poverty, diseases, gender inequality or natural catastrophes. But enabling anyone to query a sensitive dataset to find the right insight, can only happen at scale if it is done in a safe way that respects the privacy of individuals, and in collaboration with the local constituents. With its novel approach with Privacy Safe Algorithms and Local Governance, Opal is opening the way to help find better insights and support better informed decisions.
— Nicolas de Cordes