Jean-Loup Picard is a graduate of École Polytechnique. He began his career in several French public ministries (1972-1981) before joining the Thomson/Alcatel group in 1982, first as Director of the Private Telephone division, then as Director of the Telecommunications division of Thomson-CSF. He was Senior VP for the Communications and Command branch (1988-1992) and later for the Detection and Missile Systems branch (1992-1998). He has held his current position since 1998.