Pascal Daloz
"You call it 'Incredible India', for me, it's one of the places where imagination has no border—I would say India is a factory for the future."
— Pascal Daloz[2]
Overview
Pascal Daloz | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1969 (age 56–57) France |
| Citizenship | France |
| Education | Engineering degree |
| Alma mater | École des Mines de Paris (Mines ParisTech) |
| Occupation(s) | Business executive, engineer |
| Employer | Dassault Systèmes |
| Known for | Strategic leadership and acquisitions at Dassault Systèmes, including the Medidata acquisition |
| Title | Chief Executive Officer of Dassault Systèmes |
| Term | 2024–present |
| Predecessor | Bernard Charlès |
| Board member of | Sopra Steria; STMicroelectronics; Medidata; 3DS Outscale; PSL University Foundation |
| Awards | Hermès de l’Innovation prize (2010) |
| Website | https://www.3ds.com/about/company/leadership/pascal-daloz |
🧭 Pascal Daloz (born 1969) is a French business executive and engineer who serves as chief executive officer (CEO) of Dassault Systèmes, a global 3D design and engineering software group headquartered in France.[3][4] Trained at the École des Mines de Paris, he built an early career at Arthur D. Little and Credit Suisse First Boston before joining Dassault Systèmes in 2001, where he became one of the principal strategists behind the company’s push beyond its aerospace roots into a diversified portfolio spanning manufacturing, life sciences and infrastructure.[5][6]
🏗️ Strategic architect. Over more than two decades at Dassault Systèmes, Daloz held successive positions in research, strategy, marketing, finance and operations, culminating in his appointment as CEO on 1 January 2024, succeeding long-time leader Bernard Charlès.[7][8] He was a key figure in reshaping the company’s structure around industry verticals, building its portfolio of software brands and leading an acquisition strategy that extended the group into data analytics and life sciences, notably through the 2019 purchase of Medidata Solutions, a U.S. specialist in clinical trial software.[4][6]
🌐 From “things” to “life”. As CEO, Daloz promotes a long-term vision in which Dassault Systèmes builds “virtual universes” that connect three domains—manufacturing, life sciences & healthcare, and infrastructure & cities—through cloud platforms and artificial intelligence.[6] He has stated ambitions for a predominantly cloud-based business over the coming decade and a 2040 horizon in which virtual twins of products, patients and cities are interconnected, positioning the company at the intersection of engineering, biology and urban systems.[6][4] Under his leadership, the group continues to invest heavily in research and development and has set mid-term targets for double-digit revenue growth and a doubling of earnings per share, although these goals are being pursued against a backdrop of increased market scrutiny and share-price volatility.[6][8][9]
Early life and education
👶 Origins in France. Pascal Daloz was born in 1969 and grew up in France, outside the traditional Parisian establishment that often feeds the country’s corporate elite.[10] He studied engineering at the École des Mines de Paris (Mines ParisTech), one of France’s grandes écoles, where the training in applied sciences and systems thinking helped shape the analytical approach that would later characterise his management style.[5][4]
🎓 Engineering and analytical training. At Mines, Daloz was exposed to both technical disciplines and industrial economics, an education that combined quantitative rigour with an understanding of how technology could influence organisations and society.[5] This dual orientation—engineering and management—provided a foundation for his later insistence that disruptive technologies should be developed in tandem with social and organisational progress rather than in isolation.[4]
🧪 Early consulting and finance career. After graduating in the early 1990s, Daloz joined Arthur D. Little in 1992 as a technology consultant, advising companies on innovation and high-tech strategies at a time when the digital economy was beginning to emerge.[5][10] In 1997 he moved to Credit Suisse First Boston as a technology analyst, shifting from advising management teams to evaluating listed technology companies, which gave him experience in equity research, market expectations and the financial assessment of innovation-driven firms.[5][4]
🧭 From advisor to builder. By the end of the 1990s, after observing successive cycles of enthusiasm and correction in the technology sector, Daloz chose to leave the role of external advisor and become an operator inside an industrial group.[5] In 2001 he joined Dassault Systèmes, marking a lasting pivot toward software and long-term corporate development that would define the rest of his career.[4]
Career
Early roles at Dassault Systèmes
🚀 Vice president for research and strategy. When he arrived at Dassault Systèmes in 2001, Daloz became vice president for Research, Strategy and Market Development, working within the research and development organisation to position the group in the fast-growing product lifecycle management (PLM) market.[4] He helped adapt the company’s historically aerospace-focused software to a broader set of industries by incorporating internet-era technologies and aligning technical roadmaps with emerging customer needs in sectors such as automotive and industrial equipment.[4]
🧩 Building an industry-centric model. In 2003 he was promoted to vice president for Strategy and Business Development, with a mandate to coordinate strategic planning, portfolio choices, partnerships and mergers and acquisitions.[4] During this period, Dassault Systèmes reorganised its approach around industry verticals rather than purely product lines, enabling teams to tailor solutions for specific sectors and deepening engagement with end-user business processes.[4] Daloz was also associated with the creation of new brands such as SIMULIA in 2005, dedicated to realistic simulation, which broadened the group’s offering beyond design tools into analysis and virtual testing.[4]
📣 Executive vice president for strategy and marketing. In 2007 Daloz became executive vice president for Strategy and Marketing, a role that combined corporate planning with brand positioning and go-to-market responsibilities.[4] He contributed to the internalisation of Dassault Systèmes’ distribution network and to the deployment of successive software architectures, which facilitated the expansion of the customer base and supported entry into new geographies and segments.[4]
Expansion through acquisitions and new sectors
🏛️ Corporate strategy and brand portfolio. From 2010, as executive vice president for Corporate Strategy and Market Development, Daloz assumed responsibility for the company’s family of brands, encouraging each to drive innovation while ensuring that the overall portfolio remained coherent across disciplines and industries.[4] This role positioned him at the centre of decisions about where Dassault Systèmes should invest organically and where it should use acquisitions to access new technologies or markets.[4]
🧬 Mergers, acquisitions and diversification. In 2014, he became executive vice president for Brands and Corporate Development, effectively serving as the group’s chief strategist and head of external growth.[4] Under his guidance, Dassault Systèmes pursued a series of targeted acquisitions—such as Exalead (enterprise search), Netvibes (dashboards and social analytics), Geovia (geoscience modelling) and Accelrys, later integrated as the BIOVIA brand (scientific and molecular modelling)—with the aim of extending the company from 3D design into information intelligence, big data and scientific applications.[4]
💉 Medidata and the life-sciences pivot. The most prominent of these transactions was the 2019 acquisition of Medidata Solutions, a U.S. company specialising in clinical trial and life-science data software, in a deal valued at about US$5.8 billion.[4][5] Dassault Systèmes presented the transaction as a strategic move to make life sciences its second core industry, and over the following years the contribution of this sector to group revenue rose from a mid-single-digit percentage to around a quarter of sales by the early 2020s.[6] The combination of virtual twin technologies with biological and clinical data became a central theme of Daloz’s narrative about the company’s future role in healthcare and research.[6][4]
Chief financial officer and chief operating officer
💼 Transition to finance leadership. In 2018, after many years in strategy and corporate development, Daloz was appointed executive vice president for Finance and took on the responsibilities of chief financial officer (CFO), while retaining a strong hand in strategic direction.[5][3] The move added oversight of budgeting, capital allocation and investor relations to his existing portfolio and further entrenched his position as one of the most influential executives at Dassault Systèmes.[4]
🏭 Creation of the COO role. On 5 February 2020, Dassault Systèmes announced the creation of a chief operating officer (COO) role and named Daloz as its first occupant, while he continued to serve as CFO.[5] As COO, he led an Operations Executive Committee tasked with breaking down organisational silos and preparing the company to focus on three major economic sectors—Manufacturing, Life Sciences & Healthcare, and Infrastructure & Cities—supported by cloud infrastructure and the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.[4][3] During this period, the company popularised the phrase “from things to life” to describe its ambition to move from designing products to influencing outcomes in areas such as health and urban sustainability.[4]
🧱 Preparing the succession. The accumulation of strategic, financial and operational responsibilities made Daloz the de facto number-two executive under CEO Bernard Charlès and positioned him as an heir apparent.[7][8] Governance announcements in 2022 emphasised the “tandem” formed by Charlès and Daloz and outlined a progressive transition in which Charlès would move to a non-executive chairmanship while Daloz prepared to assume the chief executive role.[7]
Chief executive officer
👔 Appointment as CEO. Effective 1 January 2024, Pascal Daloz became CEO of Dassault Systèmes, succeeding Bernard Charlès, who had led the company since the mid-1990s and moved to the role of executive chairman.[8][11] The transition, prepared over several years, was presented by the company as ensuring continuity of strategy while opening a new chapter in leadership.[7] In public statements, Charlès highlighted more than two decades of close collaboration with Daloz, describing him as someone capable of embracing future trends and orchestrating cross-functional teams.[5][7]
🏙️ Strategic vision to 2040. As CEO, Daloz has articulated a strategy built around the creation of three “universes” corresponding to industry, life and infrastructure, all connected by cloud and data platforms.[6] In interviews he has projected a 2040 horizon in which virtual twins of factories, hospitals and cities inform one another, and has indicated that he expects a large majority of Dassault Systèmes’ business to shift to cloud delivery within the following decade.[6][4] The strategy continues to rely on selective acquisitions to fill technological gaps, particularly in life sciences, artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, while maintaining strong investment in internal research and development.[6][4]
📊 Business scale and market performance. By the early 2020s, prior to his appointment as CEO, Dassault Systèmes had become a major global software vendor, reporting revenue of around US$6.4 billion, a portfolio of about eleven software brands and more than 350,000 customers in over 150 countries.[6] The first years of his tenure, however, coincided with headwinds for the share price: after gains in 2023, the stock fell by more than a quarter in 2024 and continued to decline in 2025 amid growth concerns and a more cautious stance from investors toward high-valuation software companies.[9][12] In late 2025, a guidance cut that lowered expected revenue growth to mid-single-digit percentages led to a sharp one-day fall in the share price, underscoring the scrutiny under which his strategic plans are being implemented.[13]
💶 Executive compensation. Daloz’s promotion to CEO placed him among the highest-paid executives on France’s CAC 40 index. Press reports indicate that his total remuneration for 2024, his first full year as chief executive, was approximately €15.5 million, making him one of the top three earners among index constituents.[14] The package combined fixed salary, annual bonus and long-term equity incentives, reflecting the company’s practice of heavily weighting compensation toward performance shares.[14]
📈 Structure of pay and comparison with predecessor. A significant portion of Daloz’s 2024 compensation—around €13.5 million—consisted of performance share grants whose value depends on future share-price and earnings trajectories.[15] Commentators have noted that, although substantial, his awards remain markedly below those historically granted to his predecessor Bernard Charlès, whose exceptional long-term incentive plans led to annual pay packets approaching €50 million in some years, and have interpreted this as a sign that shareholders and the board wish to test the new CEO’s performance before granting similarly large packages.[14][15]
💼 Equity stake and wealth. After more than two decades at Dassault Systèmes, Daloz has built a personal shareholding in the company estimated at around 0.27–0.3% of the outstanding capital, acquired through stock options and employee share plans.[16] At market valuations in the mid-2020s, this stake corresponds to tens of millions of euros, placing him among the wealthier professional managers in the French technology sector, though still well below the fortunes of controlling shareholders and founders.[16][12]
🏛️ Board positions and group roles. Beyond his executive responsibilities at Dassault Systèmes, Daloz has served as an independent director on the boards of Sopra Steria, an information-technology services company, and STMicroelectronics, a semiconductor manufacturer, roles that expose him to broader developments in European digital infrastructure and electronics.[3][4] Within the Dassault ecosystem, he has been chairman of Medidata following its acquisition and chairman of 3DS Outscale, the group’s cloud-infrastructure subsidiary, and he sits on the board of the PSL University Foundation in Paris, reflecting an interest in higher education and research.[4][3]
Personal life, interests and philanthropy
🏠 Private family life. Despite his prominent corporate role, Daloz maintains a relatively low public profile regarding his private life. Biographical sketches indicate that he is married and has children, but specific details about his family are not widely disclosed, in line with the discretion often observed by senior French executives.[10] Interviews and official profiles tend instead to focus on his professional responsibilities, technological interests and views on innovation rather than personal anecdotes.[4]
📚 Academic links and intellectual pursuits. Throughout his career, Daloz has maintained close ties with academia and the world of ideas. He has contributed to works on innovation management and has supported the creation of research and teaching programmes connected to his alma mater, including endowed chairs that bring together academic researchers and industrial practitioners in fields such as digital engineering and virtual technologies.[5][4] He has occasionally lectured to students and professionals on technology strategy, reflecting an ongoing interest in education and knowledge transfer.[4]
🏅 Awards and recognition. In 2010, Daloz received the Hermès de l’Innovation prize, an award that recognises contributions to innovation in organisational and human-capital practices.[5] The distinction highlighted his work on the human dimensions of technological change, including efforts to foster collaboration across disciplines within Dassault Systèmes and to develop management approaches that support creativity and cross-functional teamwork.[4]
🎭 Cultural and intellectual profile. Profiles of Daloz describe him as a figure who is as comfortable discussing scientific research and design theory as he is reviewing financial results, combining an engineering mindset with a broad curiosity about technology, society and the arts.[4][6] Within Dassault Systèmes, colleagues have characterised him as an affable but focused leader, blending a professorial tone in discussions of complex topics with an ability to make firm strategic decisions when necessary.[5][4]
🤝 Philanthropy and institutional engagement. Daloz’s involvement with the PSL University Foundation, where he serves on the board, aligns with Dassault Systèmes’ broader support for academic institutions and reflects his own interest in strengthening links between research and industry.[4] Through this and other initiatives, he has promoted themes such as interdisciplinary collaboration, the training of future engineers and scientists, and the role of digital tools in addressing societal challenges.[4]
Leadership style and public positions
🧠 Multidisciplinary and cross-functional management. Commentators and company communications frequently describe Daloz’s leadership style as multidisciplinary, emphasising his ability to bring together teams from research, product development, marketing and finance around shared objectives.[5][4] His background in both engineering and financial analysis is often cited as enabling him to translate between technical detail and business imperatives, an asset in steering a complex software group operating across many industries.[4]
👥 Developing a new generation of leaders. As COO and later as CEO, Daloz has been associated with efforts to broaden and renew the company’s leadership bench, encouraging the promotion of younger managers and the formation of cross-functional committees to drive key initiatives.[5][3] Corporate communications have presented this approach as fostering a “new generation of leadership” able to address emerging topics such as cloud services, artificial intelligence and sustainability, while remaining anchored in the company’s long-standing culture of engineering excellence.[4]
🏛️ Engagement in public policy and digital sovereignty. Beyond the company, Daloz has engaged with public-policy discussions on digital and creative industries. He has co-chaired a French government-backed initiative on creative industries and served as a member of France’s National Digital Council (Conseil national du numérique) between 2013 and 2015, contributing to debates on digital transformation and innovation policy.[4] Dassault Systèmes has also been among the European companies calling for increased investment in home-grown technologies and infrastructure, and under Daloz’s leadership the group has aligned itself with arguments for European digital sovereignty.[11][4]
🌱 Sustainability narrative. In line with Dassault Systèmes’ corporate tagline of “harmonising product, nature and life”, Daloz has highlighted the potential of virtual twins and simulation tools to help customers reduce waste, improve energy efficiency and design more sustainable products and systems.[6][4] He has argued that digital models can support better decision-making in sectors ranging from aviation and mobility to pharmaceuticals and urban planning, and that this role underpins the company’s self-description as a “catalyst for human progress”.[6][4]
Challenges, criticism and reception
⚖️ Limited controversy but heightened expectations. Over the course of his career, Daloz has not been associated with major personal scandals or legal disputes, and his reputation has largely been that of a discreet corporate strategist.[5] However, succeeding Bernard Charlès—who led Dassault Systèmes for nearly three decades and became closely identified with its scientific and strategic direction—has exposed him to high expectations from investors, employees and industry observers.[7][11] Some commentators have questioned whether he would simply extend his predecessor’s approach or imprint a distinct direction on the company.[6]
📉 Share-price volatility and growth concerns. The period following his appointment as CEO has been marked by weaker share-price performance relative to earlier years, influenced by broader market rotations as well as company-specific guidance.[9][12] In 2025, Dassault Systèmes cut its revenue-growth outlook, citing macroeconomic softness and a slower environment for new deals, prompting a double-digit percentage fall in the share price on the day of the announcement and renewed scrutiny of the group’s ability to deliver on its mid-term targets.[13][8] Daloz has responded by reaffirming the company’s long-term commitments to life sciences, cloud and next-generation technologies, arguing that sustained investment is necessary even in periods of slower demand.[6][4]
📊 Shareholder structure and governance context. The governance context in which Daloz operates is shaped by the significant stake held by the Dassault family and associated entities, which together control a substantial minority of the company’s capital and voting rights.[16] This concentrated ownership has historically provided stability and allowed management to pursue long-term strategies, but it also means that key decisions about leadership and compensation are scrutinised by a core group of shareholders with strong views on governance and performance.[16][14]
💬 Perceptions of style and legacy. Media profiles often contrast Daloz’s more low-key, managerial style with Charlès’s highly visible “scientist-CEO” persona, portraying him as a strategist and integrator rather than a charismatic public figure.[6][4] Supporters point to his track record in building new business lines, orchestrating acquisitions and managing complex operations, while critics note that his ultimate assessment will depend on whether he can re-accelerate growth, execute effectively on cloud and life-sciences ambitions and navigate any setbacks associated with large investments or technological bets.[6][8]
Legacy and assessment
🧭 Continuity and transformation. Daloz’s trajectory—from provincial France through Mines ParisTech to the top of a global software group—illustrates the path of a technocrat-manager who rises not through founding a start-up but through progressively broader responsibilities within a large corporation.[10][4] Within Dassault Systèmes, he is associated both with continuity of the long-standing 3DEXPERIENCE and virtual-universes strategy and with transformations that have extended the company into domains such as life sciences, geosciences and data intelligence.[4][6]
🔭 Open questions for the future. Analysts and observers have suggested that the ultimate measure of Daloz’s leadership will be whether he can convert his long-term vision—spanning virtual twins, artificial intelligence and sustainable infrastructure—into sustained revenue growth and shareholder value over the coming decade.[6][8] His tenure as CEO is still in its early stages, and assessments of his legacy will depend on how effectively he and his team manage technological shifts, integrate acquisitions and respond to economic cycles, while maintaining the company’s reputation as an innovative and socially conscious actor in the global software industry.[6][4]
Awards and honours
🏅 Innovation prize. In addition to internal corporate recognition, Daloz has received external honours for his work on innovation and organisational transformation, most notably the Hermès de l’Innovation prize in 2010, which highlighted his contributions to human-centred approaches to technological change.[5][4]
References
- ↑ "Dassault Systèmes' Capital Markets Day: Doubling non-IFRS EPS by 2028 to €2.20 - €2.40, Announcing Pascal Daloz as Chief Executive Officer on January 1, 2024". GlobeNewswire.
- ↑ "India is a factory for the future: Dassault Systèmes CEO Pascal Daloz". Forbes India.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 "Pascal Daloz – Leadership biography". Dassault Systèmes. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 4.20 4.21 4.22 4.23 4.24 4.25 4.26 4.27 4.28 4.29 4.30 4.31 4.32 4.33 4.34 4.35 4.36 4.37 4.38 4.39 4.40 4.41 4.42 4.43 4.44 4.45 4.46 4.47 "Corporate biography – Pascal Daloz" (PDF). Dassault Systèmes. 2023. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 "Dassault Systèmes Appoints Pascal Daloz Chief Operating Officer". Business Wire. 2020-02-05. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 6.19 6.20 "India is a factory for the future: Dassault Systèmes CEO Pascal Daloz". Forbes India. 2024-06-20. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 "Dassault Systèmes unveils its future governance". Dassault Systèmes. 2022-04-27. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 "Dassault Systemes Targets Significant Mid-Term Growth; Names Pascal Daloz CEO". MarketScreener / Wall Street Journal. 2023-06-09. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 "Dassault Systèmes (DSY.PA) – Stock price history". CompaniesMarketCap.com. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 "M. Pascal DALOZ – Directeur général de Dassault Systèmes". LesBiographies.com. 2024-08-23. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 "Dassault Systèmes". Wikipedia. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 "Dassault Systèmes – Market capitalization". Trading Economics. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 "DSY Stock Price Quote". Morningstar. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 "Rémunération des patrons du CAC 40 : les inégalités se creusent". La Tribune. November 2025. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Rémunérations des patrons : bonus en baisse mais explosion des très hauts salaires". Challenges. November 2025. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 "Dassault Systèmes". Wikipédia. Retrieved 2025-11-20.