Pascal Daloz
"Looking to our next horizon, 2040, virtual twin experiences will be a catalyst for new ways of collaborating at scale, capitalizing knowledge and know-how based on 'Experience as a Service'. Sustainability will be paramount, furthering the adoption of our next generation PLM. With the combination of modelling and simulation and AI, innovation will accelerate at an exponential pace. These secular trends will have a profound impact on industry and society."
— Pascal Daloz[1]
Overview
Pascal Daloz | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1969 (age 55–56) France |
| Citizenship | France |
| Education | Engineering degree |
| Alma mater | École des Mines de Paris (Mines ParisTech) |
| Occupation(s) | Business executive; Chief Executive Officer of Dassault Systèmes |
| Employer | Dassault Systèmes |
| Known for | Strategic leadership at Dassault Systèmes; expansion into life sciences and healthcare |
| Title | Chief Executive Officer |
| Term | 2024–present |
| Predecessor | Bernard Charlès |
| Board member of | Dassault Systèmes; Sopra Steria; STMicroelectronics; Medidata Solutions; 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 engineer and business executive who has served as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dassault Systèmes since 1 January 2024, after more than two decades in senior strategic, financial and operational roles at the company.[3][4] Trained as an engineer at the École des Mines de Paris, he began his career in technology consulting and equity research before joining Dassault Systèmes in 2001, where he helped steer its evolution from a specialist in 3D design software into a diversified provider of virtual twin and product lifecycle management (PLM) platforms for manufacturing, life sciences and infrastructure clients worldwide.[5][6] His leadership has been closely associated with Dassault Systèmes’ expansion into life sciences software, notably through the 2019 acquisition of Medidata Solutions, and with the company’s stated ambition to connect virtual models of products, patients and cities through cloud-based platforms and artificial intelligence.[7][6]
Early life and education
🎓 Origins and studies. Born in 1969 and raised in France, Daloz studied engineering at the École des Mines de Paris (Mines ParisTech), one of the country's grandes écoles, graduating in the early 1990s as digital technologies were beginning to transform industry and finance.[5][8] His training combined fundamental science, engineering and economics, a background that would later underpin his emphasis on linking technological innovation with social and organisational change.[5]
Early career in consulting and finance
💼 Consulting and equity research. After graduating, Daloz joined the consulting firm Arthur D. Little in 1992 as a technology consultant, advising corporate clients on innovation and growth strategies at the outset of the internet era.[5][6] In 1997 he moved into finance as a technology sector analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston, covering high-growth software and electronics companies and gaining experience in valuing business models and capital-market expectations.[5][8] Observers of his later career have noted that this combination of hands-on consulting and external financial analysis gave him a 360-degree view of the technology industry, influencing his decision in 2001 to leave advisory roles and join an operating company.[6]
Career at Dassault Systèmes
Strategic leadership and brand development
🏢 Entry into Dassault Systèmes. In 2001, Daloz joined Dassault Systèmes as vice-president for research, strategy and market development, marking his transition from analyst to corporate strategist.[6] At that time the company, known for its CATIA design software, was extending beyond its aerospace roots and seeking to establish itself in the emerging market for product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions. Daloz worked with research and development teams to integrate internet-era technologies into the firm's software platforms and to position its offerings for broader industrial adoption.[6]
📊 From strategy to industry verticals. In 2003 he was promoted to vice-president for strategy and business development, with responsibility for aligning product roadmaps, mergers and acquisitions and partnerships.[6] Under his guidance, Dassault Systèmes reorganised its activities around industry-specific verticals—such as aerospace, automotive and consumer goods—rather than purely by product lines, a shift intended to make its solutions more directly responsive to customer needs in each sector.[6] During this period he also contributed to the creation of new software brands, including the SIMULIA brand launched in 2005 to consolidate realistic simulation tools within a unified portfolio.[6]
🧩 Brand portfolio and acquisitions. From 2010, as executive vice-president for corporate strategy and market development, and later as executive vice-president for brands and corporate development from 2014, Daloz oversaw all of Dassault Systèmes’ software brands and led an active acquisition programme.[5][6] He played a central role in deals such as the acquisitions of search technology company Exalead (2010), dashboard and analytics provider Netvibes (2012), geosciences software firm Geovia (2012) and biotech and materials modelling specialist Accelrys, which formed the basis for the BIOVIA brand (2014).[6] These transactions followed a deliberate strategy of extending the company’s capabilities in information intelligence, big data and scientific computing so that its 3D design tools could be combined with search, analytics and domain-specific simulation.[6]
Expansion into life sciences
🧬 Medidata and life sciences push. The most significant acquisition of this period came in 2019, when Dassault Systèmes agreed to purchase Medidata Solutions, a United States-based provider of clinical trial software, in a deal valued at around US$5.8 billion.[6] Daloz, then chief financial officer and head of strategy, was widely described as an architect of the transaction, which the company said would establish life sciences as its second core industry after manufacturing.[5] In subsequent years life sciences revenue rose from around 5 percent of Dassault Systèmes’ turnover in the mid-2010s to roughly a quarter by 2023, reflecting the integration of Medidata’s clinical data platforms with the group’s simulation tools.[7] Daloz has promoted the idea that the same virtual twin technologies used to model aircraft and factories can also be used to model hearts, hospitals and healthcare systems, aligning the firm’s strategy with broader trends in biopharmaceutical research and patient-centric care.[7][6]
Chief financial officer and chief operating officer
📑 Finance and operations roles. In 2018 Daloz was appointed executive vice-president, chief financial officer and corporate strategy officer of Dassault Systèmes, adding financial stewardship to his strategic responsibilities.[6] Two years later, in February 2020, the company created the position of chief operating officer and named him to the role while he retained the CFO portfolio, effectively making him the second-ranking executive.[5] As COO he led a newly formed Operations Executive Committee tasked with coordinating product development, the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, brand management, industry focus and global sales and marketing, with a view to preparing the company for growth in three priority domains: manufacturing industries, life sciences and healthcare, and infrastructure and cities.[5][6]
☁️ From things to life. During his tenure as COO, Daloz oversaw internal transformations aimed at shifting Dassault Systèmes “from things to life”, a phrase used by management to describe a move from designing discrete products toward shaping entire systems and experiences.[6] This included expanding the use of the 3DS Outscale cloud infrastructure to deliver software as a service, investing in “virtual twin” projects for urban planning and infrastructure, and promoting cross-functional collaboration between engineering, marketing and finance teams.[6] The period also coincided with the integration of Medidata, where Daloz served as chairman, and with initiatives to align the company’s brand portfolio with long-term goals in sustainability and life sciences.[6]
Chief executive officer
🧑💼 Succession to chief executive. On 1 January 2024 Daloz succeeded Bernard Charlès, who had led Dassault Systèmes since 1995, as chief executive officer, while Charlès became chairman of the board.[9][3] The succession followed a long-planned governance reform announced in 2022, in which Charlès described their relationship as a “tandem” spanning more than twenty years and emphasised continuity in leadership and strategic direction.[9][4] The new structure formalised Daloz’s position as the principal operational leader of the group while maintaining close ties with its long-time architect of strategy and technology vision.[9]
🌐 Strategic vision as CEO. As chief executive, Daloz has articulated a long-term strategy that envisages three “universes” of activity for Dassault Systèmes—manufacturing industries, life sciences and healthcare, and city and infrastructure—and seeks to interconnect them through cloud platforms, data and artificial intelligence.[7] In interviews he has outlined a horizon to 2040 in which virtual twins of products, factories and cities are linked to clinical and biological data, allowing customers to simulate complex systems and optimise them for performance, sustainability and regulatory constraints.[7][6] Achieving this vision, he has argued, will require moving a large majority of the company’s business to the cloud over the coming decade and selectively using generative AI where its costs and benefits are aligned with industrial use cases.[7]
Business performance under his leadership
📈 Growth metrics and portfolio. By the time Daloz became CEO, Dassault Systèmes had grown into a global software group with annual revenue of about US$6.4 billion in 2023, a portfolio of eleven software brands and more than 350,000 customers in over 150 countries, with a large share of employees working in research and development.[7] The expansion into life sciences, consumer goods and infrastructure, built through acquisitions and internal development during his years in strategy roles, helped diversify revenue beyond the company’s traditional automotive and aerospace base.[6] Management set mid-term targets of achieving double-digit revenue growth and doubling earnings per share, framing these objectives as the next phase of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform’s expansion.[4]
📉 Share price volatility. Daloz’s early period as chief executive coincided with a more difficult stock market environment for high-growth software companies. Dassault Systèmes’ share price fell by about 26 percent in 2024 and declined further in 2025, leaving the stock roughly 40 percent below its level at the time he took office and implying a market capitalisation of around €30 billion by late 2025.[10][11] In October 2025 the company cut its sales forecast and reported quarterly revenue below earlier guidance, triggering an intraday share price drop of around 15 percent and heightening scrutiny of its growth outlook.[12] Daloz and his team have responded by emphasising the group’s innovation pipeline, continued investment in research and partnerships and their confidence in meeting the mid-term financial objectives despite short-term headwinds.[4]
Financial profile and wealth
💶 Executive compensation. Moving into the chief executive role placed Daloz among the highest-paid corporate leaders on the CAC 40 index. In 2024 his total remuneration was reported at about €15.5 million, including fixed salary, variable bonus and share-based awards, making him the third-highest paid CEO in the index that year.[13] Around €13.5 million of this amount came in the form of performance-linked share awards, reflecting the board’s decision to tie most of his compensation to the company’s future stock-market performance.[14] Commentators contrasted this package with that of his predecessor Bernard Charlès, who received €46.8 million in 2023, largely from the vesting of long-term share plans, and noted that shareholders appeared to be cautious in granting similarly large awards to the new CEO.[13][14]
💹 Shareholding and external roles. After more than twenty years at Dassault Systèmes, Daloz has accumulated a personal shareholding estimated at around 0.3 percent of the company’s capital, a stake that, at 2025 market prices, corresponds to tens of millions of euros and aligns his financial interests with those of long-term investors.[15] In addition to his executive role, he serves as a director of IT services group Sopra Steria and semiconductor company STMicroelectronics, and as chairman of Medidata and of cloud-infrastructure provider 3DS Outscale, both part of the Dassault Systèmes group.[3][6] He also sits on the board of the PSL University Foundation in Paris, reflecting his continuing engagement with higher education and research funding.[6]
Leadership style and personal life
🏠 Private life and family. Despite his prominent corporate position, Daloz maintains a relatively low public profile in his personal life. Public sources note that he is married with children, but he rarely discusses his family in interviews, focusing instead on business strategy, technology and societal issues.[6][8] This discretion is consistent with the approach of many French business leaders, for whom private and professional spheres are kept largely separate.
🏛️ Academic links and recognition. Daloz has maintained close ties with academia and the world of management education. He has contributed to publications on innovation and corporate strategy, and has supported the creation of research and teaching chairs in partnership with his alma mater and other institutions, aimed at bridging academic work on design and systems thinking with industrial practice.[6] In 2010 he received the Hermès de l’Innovation prize for his work on human relations and innovation within organisations, recognition that underlined his interest in the human and cultural dimensions of technological change.[5]
🤝 Management approach. Company statements and profiles describe Daloz as a cross-functional leader who seeks to bring together multidisciplinary teams rather than manage in a strictly hierarchical fashion.[5] The 2020 announcement of his appointment as COO highlighted his “ability to embrace future trends and bring together highly skilled teams” and framed his role as expanding and empowering a new generation of leadership within Dassault Systèmes.[5] In internal governance terms, his style has been associated with encouraging collaboration between brands, functions and regions, while retaining a structured decision-making process rooted in his engineering and financial background.[6]
📚 Intellectual interests and public positioning. In public forums, including corporate podcasts and media interviews, Daloz often situates Dassault Systèmes’ activities within broader debates about sustainability, digital sovereignty and the societal impact of virtual universes.[7][6] He has been involved in policy-oriented initiatives such as France’s National Digital Council (Conseil national du numérique) and has co-chaired a French government-backed creative industries initiative, roles in which he has argued for maintaining European capabilities in areas such as 3D design, healthcare technology and artificial intelligence.[6] Within Dassault Systèmes he has supported the appointment of a chief sustainability officer and has promoted the idea that virtual twin technologies can help customers reduce waste and improve environmental performance.[6]
Controversies and challenges
⚖️ Investor expectations and governance. While Daloz has not been associated with major personal controversies or legal disputes, his elevation to CEO has attracted scrutiny from investors accustomed to Bernard Charlès’ nearly three-decade tenure and strong stock-market record.[4][13] Analysts noted that his initial equity-based compensation was lower than that of his predecessor and interpreted this as a sign that the board and shareholders wished to “test” the new chief executive before granting larger long-term awards.[14] In response, company communications have repeatedly stressed continuity in leadership and strategy, with Daloz presenting himself as the custodian and extender of the 3DEXPERIENCE vision rather than a radical break from past policies.[9][5]
🔍 Performance pressures. The decline in Dassault Systèmes’ share price and the 2025 reduction in revenue growth guidance have been focal points for criticism, particularly from commentators concerned about slower demand in some end markets and currency headwinds.[10][12] Daloz has argued that continued investment in research, especially in life sciences, cloud and defence-related projects, is necessary to sustain long-term competitiveness, and he has pointed to the company’s diversified portfolio and strong balance sheet as buffers against cyclical volatility.[4][7] As of late 2025 there had been no major activist campaigns targeting the company’s governance, in part because the Dassault family remained the largest shareholder, providing a stable core of support.[16][15]
🧭 Comparison with predecessor and future outlook. Commentators have frequently compared Daloz’s more low-key, managerial style with the more publicly visible scientific profile of Bernard Charlès, noting that the former built his influence through internal strategy, acquisitions and operations rather than through external thought-leadership.[5][6] Some analyses characterise him as a “builder” who extends and operationalises existing visions, rather than a founder-style disruptor, and suggest that his long-term reputation will depend on whether he can deliver the promised acceleration in growth from life sciences, cloud services and smart-city infrastructure.[7][4]
Legacy
🌟 Continuity and transformation. Daloz’s trajectory—from an engineering education and early career in consulting and equity research to senior leadership at Dassault Systèmes—has positioned him as a representative figure of contemporary French industrial management, combining technical literacy with financial and strategic expertise.[5][8] His work on brand development, acquisitions and the move into life sciences has helped reshape Dassault Systèmes from a specialist in 3D design to a diversified provider of virtual twin platforms across manufacturing, healthcare and infrastructure.[6][7] Supporters argue that his emphasis on connecting technological innovation with social and environmental goals reflects an attempt to frame virtual universes as tools for “harmonising product, nature and life”, a theme that has become central to the company’s corporate narrative.[7][6]
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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 "Pascal Daloz". Dassault Systèmes. 2023. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 "Dassault Systèmes Targets Significant Mid-Term Growth; Names Pascal Daloz CEO". MarketScreener. 9 June 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 "Dassault Systèmes Appoints Pascal Daloz Chief Operating Officer". Business Wire. 5 February 2020. 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 6.21 6.22 6.23 6.24 6.25 6.26 6.27 6.28 6.29 6.30 6.31 "Corporate biography – Pascal Daloz" (PDF). Dassault Systèmes. January 2023. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 7.00 7.01 7.02 7.03 7.04 7.05 7.06 7.07 7.08 7.09 7.10 7.11 "India is a factory for the future: Dassault Systèmes CEO Pascal Daloz". Forbes India. 20 June 2024. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 "M. Pascal DALOZ - Directeur général de Dassault Systèmes (depuis 2024)" (in French). LesBiographies.com. 23 August 2024. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 "Dassault Systèmes unveils its future governance". Dassault Systèmes. 27 April 2022. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Dassault Systèmes (DSY.PA) – Stock price history". CompaniesMarketCap.com. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "Dassault Systèmes – Market Capitalization". Trading Economics. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 "DSY Stock Price Quote". Morningstar. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 "Rémunération des patrons du CAC 40 : les inégalités se creusent" (in French). La Tribune. November 2025. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 "Rémunérations des patrons : bonus en baisse mais explosion des très hauts salaires" (in French). Challenges. November 2025. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Dassault Systèmes" (in French). Wikipédia. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "Dassault Systèmes". Wikipedia. Retrieved 2025-11-20.