Accenture launches into BPO. Foundever appoints a new president. Tersea part ways with Edouard Layeillon

Sqwad's mercato of managers without power. BPO and customer experience are becoming almost boring, with so many tasteless and unsurprising appointments that we have reached a kind of plateau from which innovation seems to be absent.

In call centres and outsourced customer experience

Foundever appoints a new President for France: Claire Calméjane 
Foundever, formerly Sitel and Acticall, the world's number 3 in customer experience, announces the arrival of Claire Calméjane as President for France. Claire Calméjane took up her post on 1 April 2025, succeeding Olivier Blanchard, who will take on the role of coordinating operations in Africa alongside Benedita Miranda, General Manager of on-shore/off-shore operations.

Claire Calméjane said, ‘At Foundever, alongside Chris Halbard, CEO of the EMEA Market, I come to develop and accelerate the deployment of our multimodal AI and data offering, serving both our advisers, who will be augmented by AI, and our customers, to improve service quality and create value. ’ 

With twenty years' experience in the tech and financial services sector, she has led structuring transformation programmes within organisations such as Société Générale, Lloyds Banking Group and Capgemini. Claire Calméjane is an expert in artificial intelligence, fintech, IT transformation and digital P&L. She is also an investor and board member. So it's a new woman at the helm of the French subsidiary of the former Sitel, following in the footsteps of Chloé Beauvallet. The question to be asked, in a BPO market in the throes of consolidation and turned upside down by conversational agents, for example, is what impact a new subsidiary CEO can have in this type of group.

The question to be asked, in a BPO market that is in the throes of consolidation and being turned upside down by conversational agents, is what impact a new subsidiary CEO can have in this type of group. ‘It's no longer clear how much autonomy the heads of the FSM (French speaking market) subsidiaries of the major global players have’, says a good market observer: ’they all say they're going in the direction of tech, of AI combined with people. In fact, the first significant experiments with conversational agents or improving contactability in prospecting, two key issues, are being conducted by brands or SMEs’, he adds.

In her first contribution, a post on Linkedin, the President (intentionally?) rewrote part of Foundever's history, forgetting one of the three co-founders: Arnaud de Lacoste. 

‘The cat is out of the bag!
I'm thrilled to join Foundever as General Manager for France (ex Acticall, ex Sitel). Foundever is a clever play on ‘Founder’ and ‘Ever’ - a nod to the mindset of its French founders, Laurent Uberti and Olivier Camino: entrepreneurial, bold, and relentlessly forward-looking’.

As a reminder, 80% of Foundever is owned by Creadev, part of the Mulliez group. These talented entrepreneurs from the north of France have a culture. At Decathlon, Barbara Martin Coppola, the ex-CEO, had to pack her bags recently because she apparently wanted to shake things up a bit too much. 

Accenture is creating or reactivating a BPO/Customer Relations subsidiary, with one of its call centres based in Marcq-en-Baroeul in the north of France, and operations headed up by Jean-Marc Penelaud, ex-DRC of La Redoute. Already present in the Trust and Safety business, the global consulting giant is now officially offering a BPO, IT and digital transformation supermarket : consulting, moderation, BPO. Accenture Post Trade Processing is the name of this entity, which has existed in France for twelve years and whose turnover varies massively each year. Philippe Guyonnet is its CEO. The company is recruiting.

Edouard Layeillon, ex-Foundever, has left Tersea, two years after taking up his post, without the reasons for this rapid departure being known. He was DG Commerce. It is not known who left whom. 

From Sqwad... Clément Thorre, ex-CCA International and Papernest, joins Sqwad, ex-Studycall, to manage its Spanish subsidiary.

Technology, AI, digital marketing

Thierry Desforges is leaving Viavoo, which he co-founded with Edouard Layeillon. The company had recently joined SoftNext. The graft must not have taken, as the engineer announced his departure on Linkedin shortly after the merger. Viavoo or the complicated life of a company that was particularly advanced a few years ago in monitoring the social web and e-reputation, but whose growth seems to have stagnated. 

At Deafi, which organises the accessibility of customer services for the deaf and hard of hearing, Matthieu de Châlus is taking over the company founded by Jean-Charles Correa and which Laurent Mimault has been running since Correa's death. He previously worked for Habitat et Humanisme.

Mélanie Hentgès is leaving Concentrix, where she was head of consultancy in France, to take over as head of marketing and revenue at Clariane, formerly Korian.

Frédéric Szakal, ex-Orthodidacte and Care to Care, has joined Callity, a speech analytics specialist, to take up a sales role. His former partner, Sylvie Cleyet, has joined Manifone.

One of the most significant developments in the market is the acquisition, announced earlier this week by Konecta, of Speak33 and an Italian digital agency. Read more here.

The editors of En-Contact.