Philippe Hayat

Philippe Hayat General Information

Biography

Mr. Philippe Hayat serves as Managing Partner at Serena Capital. He serves as Board Member at Finalcad. Previously, he co-founded Kangaroo Village. He is a serial entrepreneur who has been involved in the creation and turnaround of several industrial, service, and technology companies. Between 1994 and 1999, he led the development of Bâches de France, a French company providing industrial and advertising canvas for buildings. He brought the company to profitability and sold it to the Qualis Group in 1999. In 2000, he co-founded with Marc Fournier and Xavier Lorphelin the incubator Kangaroo Village, acquired by Société Générale in 2002. He subsequently played an active role in the turnaround of the Société Générale venture capital portfolio. In 2004, he acquired Architel, a French company specializing in storage services and electronic document management. Architel was then purchased by Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM), the worldwide leader in information protection and storage services. He started the entrepreneurship program at ESSEC and the French Institute of Political Sciences. In 2006 he launched a public initiative (" 100.000 entrepreneurs ") to promote entrepreneurship in high schools. That non-profit organization is focused on bringing the entrepreneurship spirit to High Schools and helping students open their professional horizons. Since its inception, more than 50,000 students have talked to entrepreneurs in their classrooms. Thanks to those meetings, they understand better the meaning of entrepreneurship, the way a company works, and the use of studies. The organization works closely with the French Ministry of Education. More than 3,000 entrepreneurs belong to that network throughout France. He is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales (ESSEC).