Francis Nebot is the President International of iFind Sasu. He holds a telecommunication Engineering Diploma from Institut National des Telecommunications. He has worked for Alcatel’s International Management for 25 years with various postings in Australia, India, Spain and France. In particular , he worked on the Globacom account Nigeria’s second National Operator from its inception in 2000 generating more than 1,5 billions worth of sales.
Francis is a visionary international business development executive, a field person, deal-maker, diplomat and successful strategist with years of global ex perience, cross-functional team management, technical excellence and a proven track record of success developing operational business in telecommunication, IT, Entertainment, Oil and Gas across African countries, Europe, India and Ch ina generating multi-millions multi-years contracts.
Francis’ professional multicultural experience began in 1983 with Alcatel In Sydney as a young technology transfer engineer. He then moved back to Paris in 1985, where he was successfully in charge of Microwave’s transfer of technology industrial implementation in Turkey and Greece (4 Mi euros). In 1989 he was appointed Business development director for Alcatel Radio Space and Defense (RSD) Asia-Pacific, where he concluded sales of standard A/B Earth Stations in various Pacific islands: New Zealand, Papua Guinea, Vanuatu, Western Samoa, and Solomon islands (10 Mi €).
He was then appointed (1990 to 1994) Alcatel RSD delegate in India for India, Nepal, Sri lanka, Bhutan and Maldives where he
Francis Nebot is the President International of iFind Sasu. He holds a telecommunication Engineering Diploma from Institut National des Telecommunications. He has worked for Alcatel’s International Management for 25 years with various postings in Australia, India, Spain and France. In particular , he worked on the Globacom account Nigeria’s second National Operator from its inception in 2000 generating more than 1,5 billions worth of sales.
supervised the implementation of another microwave TOT (30 Mi euros) and was instrumental in the GSM adoption by India as the digital mobile standard. He also boosted and monitored orders and sales for rural telephony and domestic satellite networks in Nepal under World Bank tenders (30 Mi €).
Back in Europe in 1995 he was first posted in Spain as business development director of the newly created Access systems division of Alcatel, in charge of Asia Pacific, and then took over the sales direction for Africa based in Paris. He successfully signed contracts in 16 African countries for fixed wireless access and rural telephony networks (more than 50 Mi €).
In 1999 he was promoted Country Senior Officer in charge of the Cemac area (Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Central Africa and Equatorial Guinea) where he grew the business activities from 21 Mi € to 63 Mi € providing the first mobile GSM networks to the historical operators in those countries.
In 2000 Francis initiated, negotiated and signed a frame agreement with Globacom the second national operator in Nigeria. This account generated more than 1,5 Billions dollars of sales and was the largest account of Alcatel where 300 people from 33 different nationalities were proud to work upon.
He was promoted in 2004 Vice President Special Projects and was instrumental in boosting mobile sales activities in Nigeria, Angola, South Africa and eastern Africa. Under his tenure he was responsible for more than 300 Mi euros yearly sales on the African continent
Francis left Alcatel in December 2008 and set up his own consulting firm (IFIND) in March 2009 dedicated to emerging markets in the
fields of telecommunications, energy, petrochemical, and food aiming at bridging the digital divide. He also developed intercultural training modules for Africa (How to live and work in Africa) as well as software development and design for feature phones.
In 2014 he became the proud industrial partner of the “Manteau d’avenir” a nationwide aid program aimed at fighting social exclusion and poverty (www.manteaudavenir.org).
In 2016 Francis came back to his first loves: the cinema. Remembering his early days as a student when he had a radio talk show (Cine flashback) on one the first private FM radio stations (1981 to 1983), when he also became an art director for a film festival in charge of the first retrospective in Paris on Ernst Lubitsch, whilst setting up at the same time up the first movie house at his engineering school, he decided to team up his African expertise and (notably Nigeria) with his first passions. He is now a distributor of Nollywood and French speaking Africa Cinema (www.ifind.pictures)
A forward-thinking leader with a proven ability to implement regional Greenfield projects, secure funding and mitigate country-risk, Francis can indeed meet aggressive deadlines, deliver high quality results and exceed business objectives. He has a good critical t hinking and communication skills, combined with and extensive ex perience in lobbying and strategic advisory. His business acumen in international and governmental environments and excellent grasp of geopolitical, political and socio- economic issues enable him to successfully work in any multicultural environment