Orange CEO courts the enterprise sector and sends sustainability warning

• New Orange Group CEO Christel Heydemann highlights major challenges faced by businesses and society
• She believes the telco has what it takes to help enterprises tackle the major issues and wants to become their “trusted partner in technology”
• Heydemann also urges climate change action, cautioning that the next few years will be vital

PARIS – Orange Business Summit 2022 – Christel Heydemann (pictured above), who became Orange Group CEO in April, used her first public presentation to stress that the giant French telco’s mission is to become a trusted technology partner for enterprises and pledged to help meet the numerous challenges of an increasingly complex world.

Talking at the Orange Business Summit in Paris, Heydemann noted how the Covid-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of business culture and society, including how organisations embrace different ways of working.

She highlighted cybersecurity, having the right skills, digital sobriety and sovereignty as important areas in which Orange can help to meet the needs of enterprise users as working practices and patterns, as well as critical challenges, evolve.

“We live in a world where security is unfortunately a challenge we didn’t think was going to be [on the] frontline”, she argued, adding that this is now one of the focus areas for the business division of Orange. “We want to be your trusted partner in technology. We are looking forward to getting better in this regard,” the Orange CEO told the summit.

Another area in which she claims the company can be useful is in understanding and complying with the ever-changing regulatory environment which, according to Heydemann, plays a big role in all business challenges.

The Orange Group chief also noted that Orange is able to help enterprises to achieve their environmental sustainability goals. “We work very hard on energy sobriety to reach these goals”, said Heydemann, referring to the importance of reducing energy consumption. “My message today is [that we will] keep innovating with you.” 

She concluded her speech with a word of caution: “We are the last generation that can change the course of climate change, and this is because the fight in the next ten years is critical. If we don’t change collectively and massively together in the next few years what’s happening, then there’s no going back.”

- Yanitsa Boyadzhieva, Deputy Editor, TelecomTV