Alexandre Fayeulle: Cybersecurity has become a strategic field where the sovereignty of states and our online lives are at stake

LL: Mr Fayeulle, you are the founder-partner of Advens, a French cybersecurity success story, valued at over €100 million, whose turnover in 2021 was €35 million. You have 350 staff and more than 300 clients in France and abroad, including half of the CAC40: Tell us a bit about your career to date.

Fayeulle: After securing an engineering degree from ISEN at 21, I completed one year of military service in the air force, following which I cut my teeth at IBM and Bull, before creating Advens in 2000, when I was 27. I have an entrepreneurial spirit and a real independent streak. I quickly realized that my entrepreneurial activities had to have more meaning and that companies could actually make a big difference when it came to social and environmental issues.

Now I am 48 years old. Thanks to the wonderful team we have built over the years, Advens has become a leading player in the French cybersecurity ecosystem, and a growing force in the European market. We have an exciting project in prospect.

Turnover has increased by over 40% per year and, above all, we have put in place a virtuous business model which links sustainability to economic performance, allocating financing to social and environmental projects. In other words, for every €1 earned by Advens, we are able to generate €3 in favor of people and the planet. In this way we are able to bring a lot of purpose to our economic activity, and this is an excellent reason for a worker, partner or client to choose Advens.

In other words, for every €1 earned by Advens, we are able to generate €3 in favor of people and the planet.

Our model is highly virtuous, aligning social and financial performance to generate maximum impact and this is a powerful driver of positive growth and an additional avenue towards an economy truly interested in serving the common good. With models like this, companies and staff have the power to change the world. Advens is definitely doing its part!

There is a lot currently going on in the world of cybersecurity, not least Google’s decision to buy Mandiant and the impact of the war in Ukraine. What is the main purpose of a cybersecurity company?

Like any cybersecurity company, Advens’ mission is to protect citizens, companies and public institutions from every type of cyberthreat, an ever-present menace in the modern world. Unfortunately, there are many different groups engaged in this activity, from criminals and terrorists, to activists, companies and states.

As a general rule, anything that is connected, be it a resource or piece of infrastructure, it can be hacked.

Cybersecurity has become a highly strategic field where the sovereignty of states and our online lives are at stake. If a nuclear power station is hacked, it is not hard to imagine the potential consequences. Therefore, it is incumbent on states and companies to have an adequate cyber-defense. As a general rule, anything that is connected, be it a resource or piece of infrastructure, it can be hacked.

These days most countries have a 4th branch of their armed forces, one dedicated to cyber-defense, chiefly protecting infrastructure of vital strategic importance from being compromised. In the 21st century, conflicts can be won or lost on the digital battlefield and cyberthreats mean that at any given moment any organization can stop functioning.
Advens is a sovereign, independent, French cybersecurity leader present in France, Quebec and Singapore and soon to have offices in Germany, Benelux, Spain and Italy. In the coming years, we want to be the cybersecurity firm of reference in the European Union.

Cybersecurity is a dynamic sector with giant global corporations dedicated to it: What are the main trends in the market and how does Advens stand out from the competition?

Our vocation is to protect companies 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, companies that are increasingly dependent on the internet to function and, therefore, are putting more and more of their resources at the mercy of the cyber-attacker. We protect them from cyber-attackers who are more organized, skilled and agile than ever and who often have unlimited resources at their disposal. 

It’s an extremely steep challenge, which involves mobilizing and deploying a vast range of technological skills and assets. Yet there is a deficit of skilled professionals and, faced with the ceaseless advance of technological sophistication, very few companies are in a position to handle their cybersecurity needs in-house, and yet they are extremely vulnerable to attack.

The trend in the market, therefore, is towards outsourcing and industrializing cybersecurity services. And in this context, Advens stands out for three reasons. First off, we give clients a one-stop-shop experience, as a full-service supplier of cybersecurity. The fact that, from the outset, we integrated into our own company all the technology and experience necessary to protect our clients - offering a 360° solution and the close relationship that comes from being their unique cybersecurity service provider. Basically, we carry the responsibility of being a supplier of cyber-services along the entire cybersecurity value-chain.

The second quality that differentiates Advens is our rich and longstanding expertise, which is acknowledged by our peers in the cyber-security community and recognized by the awards and certificates we have earned. 

Over the past 20 years, we have assembled a top-tier ecosystem of technological partners with unrivalled knowledge and experience acquired in the course of acting in numerous user-cases, and this has allowed us to build trusted, state-of-the-art solutions and stay ahead of the threats posed by cybercriminals.

Lastly, and most importantly, there is our ability to attract, train and retain the best talent. Given the industry’s aforementioned shortage of skilled professionals, this is crucial. And in a sector where staff-turnover levels hover around the 30% mark, ours sits at 10%. In 2022, we are recruiting an additional 100 staff, the majority of them consultants, project managers, developers and data scientists. To achieve such a low rate of turnover, our business project is clearly our biggest asset.

Let’s talk about that Advens’ project. Tell us about its scope, values and what you hope it achieves?

When our teams protect a hospital, factory or shop etc., it goes far beyond merely safeguarding the data and resources of an organization. It makes them more resilient against cyberthreats, allows them carry out each of their activities on a daily basis, and helps assure the business continues to run smoothly. This is our number one purpose, one which informs everything we do as a company. But this is not enough for us.

For some time now, we have been aware of the major role companies can play in relation to social and environmental issues. Making our activity as a company more meaningful, has always been an aim here at Advens. And if these days cyber-activity makes the world go round, companies in the industry have the power to change it. This is how I would sum up our purpose. 

During the latest LBO in 2021, we took advantage of the change of financing shareholders to redistribute the company’s profits in a fairer way between Advens staff, investors and the financial endowment set up at the time, entitled Advens for People and Planet. Of note: a third of Advens staff now have shares in the company. 

Advens for People and Planet fund launched with €17 million and, going forward, will be able to allocate 50% of the financial value of the group, which equates to hundreds of millions of euros – and a lot more I hope – to making a difference to society and to the environment. 

As much as for staff as for clients and partners, our corporate ethos is an inexhaustible source of co-operation and engagement. 

A core example of Advens’ people-first approach, can you tell us how Advens for People and Planet came about? 

This mechanism combines an endowment fund with a dedicated team who are tasked with conceiving, selecting, financing and helping run projects that have the maximum impact. Since it was set up in 2021, several initiatives have seen the light of day with many others in the pipeline. 

To start with, the change of course, begun in January 2020 alongside Linkedout and Vendée Global sailing-race skipper Thomas Ruyant, now sees Advens’ work with some 500 companies and helps hundreds of jobless people get back to work. 

In the future, thanks to the increased profile and experience of the fund, thousands of people will get their dignity back and find a role in society and hundreds of companies will have taken the decision to embrace inclusivity.

Faced with the threat posed by cybercriminals, the cybersecurity sector is in dire need of diversity.

Currently at the launch stage, Advens is organizing an ambitious inclusivity project for the cybersecurity sector, seeking to detect, train and integrate hundreds of cybersecurity experts from the pool of the 2 million young people in France currently out of work, homeless or without academic qualifications, and who, because of this, find themselves excluded from society.

Faced with the threat posed by cybercriminals, the cybersecurity sector is in dire need of diversity. It is up to companies like us to address the imbalance. A pilot scheme will be launched before the end of the year. 
Various other projects are at the planning stage, such as a scheme to make cyber-security services readily accessible to key organizations, such as NGOs and charities, outreach activities designed to make more people more aware of cyberthreats and the risks associated with their daily online activities. These projects have a significant agrifarming and energy conservation element and the short-term objective of becoming carbon neutral, etc. 

As you can see we have no lack of projects or aims. Thanks to the positive growth model we have set in motion, Advens is going to be able to co-operate and act with an entire ecosystem to make a major impact.