Based in the heart of Silicon Valley, Marc Amblard is the founder and managing director of Orsay Consulting. An expert in the deep transformation of the mobility space, he provides advisory services focused on the future of mobility and automotive technologies, i.e. electrification, autonomous driving, connectivity and shared mobility and adjacent domains. Marc has been focusing on the technologies, business models and stakeholders that are driving the profound transformation of mobility for many years. This is a passion. Marc provides OEMs, automotive suppliers and other mobility-related companies various services including strategic advisory, market insight and domain-specific deep dives, scouting for technologies and startups or executive briefings. In addition, he advises several mobility startups and mentors at Plug & Play (largest accelerator in Silicon Valley). More information on services provided by Orsay Consulting is available here. Marc is deeply entrenched in the overall mobility ecosystem, particularly in Silicon Valley, i.e., startups, accelerators, tech giants, emerging OEMs, VCs/CVCs and corporate outposts, which provides him with an extensive understanding of and insight into how the ecosystem is evolving. He maintains a proprietary database which contains over 2,500 (and growing) mobility-related companies across a broad range of mobility and autotech domains and is essentially composed of startups and scale-ups located across the globe. Marc often speaks at mobility conferences and publishes a monthly newsletter on the mobility revolution (over 50 articles published to date) as well as a detailed landscape of the global autonomous driving ecosystem. Marc leverages 25+ years in senior positions at PSA, Valeo, Renault and Alstom (rail), in Europe and the USA. He received a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Arts et Métiers in Paris, France and an MBA from the University of Michigan.


I was trained as a mechanical engineer, specialized in energy systems, in particular internal combustion engines. I started my career as a development engineer for automotive and motor sport, while also learning and applying skills in the then burgeoning computer and software industry. I helped start a French video game company, and later went to start a similar US and Japanese company that would become affiliated. This group of companies grew to a $1billion group, with more than 30 companies and 2000 employees. Some companies, of which I became also a director, were listed on NASDAQ and Euronext. As such, I worked in worldwide operations and problem solving, in merger and acquisition and strategic development. I also followed a path in consulting to help companies develop their worldwide presence, their international structure and their business processes. I developed a particular knowledge and application of structural principles for companies and products, how to organize and make a company operate efficiently and effectively, in particular using cognitive science and decision making processes analysis to structure management procedures and processes.

Philippe Laurent is co-founder and CEO at http://easylive.io, a pioneer company on the live streaming market created in 2012. Graduated from Arts et Metiers and Georgia Institute of Technology, he has always been passionate about sports and video production. Drawing on his passions, he and his team were able to innovate and create one of the first all-in-one live streaming production studio fully cloud-based. Phil’ oversees the company’s business effort, strategy, and product vision. Today, http://easylive.io works for a wide range of premium clients from Paris Saint-Germain to Disney.

Xavier Wartelle is the CEO and co-founder of AVATAR MEDICAL, a startup leveraging virtual reality and standard medical images to instantly create realistic patient avatars for surgery planning. Xavier is also a Founding Partner of big bang factory, helping startups and innovative companies jump-starting in the US. Xavier is a serial entrepreneur who has started seven start-ups in Silicon Valley and France, resulting in four acquisitions. Xavier founded and led the French Tech Hub, that became the largest accelerator of French start-ups in the US. In addition, Xavier was the CEO of PRIME a leader in Corporate Open Innovation Services while promoting the Paris Region in the US. Xavier’s career spans over 35 years of executive leadership in startups and mature companies, in Medtech, telecom, enterprise software and online ventures. He is also CEO of the non-profit American Friends of Arts et Métiers, a member of French Foreign Trade Advisors organization and a French Tech Ambassador in San Francisco. Xavier holds a Master engineering degree from Ecole Nationale des Arts et Métiers, Paris.

Jean-Luc Nauleau was co-founder and CEO of Integration Associates Inc, a private corporation based in Mountain View California with design centers in Europe, the company developed innovative Integrated circuits in the field of connectivity, wireless and power applications. Integration associates was acquired by Silicon Labs Inc in 2008. Jean-Luc oversaw the operational execution across the business, he has over 20 years hands-on experience in developing products based on innovative technology. Jean-Luc graduated from “Ecole Arts et Métiers” France in 1984 and he holds a Master’s degree in Engineering from Santa Clara University.

A food enthusiast at heart, Jean has worked in the food and dairy industries since the start of his career. He launched his career at Danone in dairy manufacturing plants in France before moving to Hungary to become a Plant Manager for Savencia, a French cheese company. He then moved to the US in 2010 to build a factory and head operations for an American artisanal cheese company before becoming VP Operations at Kite Hill in 2012. He led the transformation of the company from a development lab to a commercial food company, commercialized the first products and then became Kite Hill's COO leading their operations, manufacturing and R&D. In 2017, Jean joined Danone Ventures to serve as VP Operations bringing to the portfolio companies his extensive knowledge of management, operations and supply chain in Food, and FoodTech. Jean also leads Danone Ventures' investments in FoodTech, BioTech and AgriTech. Jean is representing Danone at the board of several portfolio companies in the US and Europe, leveraging his knowledge of the ecosystems (startup, VC, corporate) in both geographies. He holds a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Arts et Metiers Paris Tech.