Atos Names Accenture’s Bernaert as CEO Ahead of Planned Split

Atos SE named Yves Bernaert as its new chief executive officer to lead the embattled French IT group through its planned split, effective immediately.

(Bloomberg) — Atos SE named Yves Bernaert as its new chief executive officer to lead the embattled French IT group through its planned split, effective immediately. 

Bernaert, 55, who previously led Accenture Technology’s European business for nine years, will be in charge of the group’s turnaround plan, Atos said. That includes splitting off and selling the legacy IT outsourcing business, and managing talks with billionaire bidder Daniel Kretinsky. 

If the split is approved, Bernaert will lead the remaining business — which includes the supercomputer, big data and cybersecurity units — that will remain listed under the Eviden name. Current Eviden CEO Philippe Oliva, who joined the group last year, will leave at the end of a transition period, Atos said.

Atos, which sells technology solutions, cybersecurity and analytics to enterprise customers, was late to offer cloud services to its clients and customers migrated to more technologically advanced rivals. That hurt sales, and the company has lost about 90% of its market value in the past three years. 

Not all investors have been convinced by the turnaround plan, which has been the target of criticism from some minority holders. 

 

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