François Candelon is a Senior Partner and Managing Director of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which he joined in 1993. Throughout his career, he worked in several European countries, lead BCG Global Telecommunications Sector from 2008 to 2012, and then spent seven years in China where he worked with the most advanced Tech companies. He is now located in Paris where he leads BCG Gamma’s AI@Scale effort for TMT companies and has been appointed as Global Director of the BCG Henderson Institute (BCG Think tank) since 2019. His own research is now focused on AI and Digital as a source of competitive advantage for businesses and national economies and particularly on country sovereignty and regulation. On this topic he has published several articles on how Europe and Africa can catch-up on AI/digital with the support of US and Chinese giants (see his TED talk, HBR and OECD articles), how countries need to redesign their Data Strategy, on AI regulation and the need to expand the concept of Responsible AI and develop a “social license” to operate AI etc. His work has been published in several prestigious reviews (e.g. Harvard Business Review, MIT-Sloane Management review, Strategy Science). He holds a monthly column on AI in Fortune and has been a speaker in global conferences like Politico.AI Summit, MWC, TED, Web Summit, Global AI Summit and Wuzhen Internet Conference. In 2021, he was among the 8 shortlisted for the prestigious Thinkers50 distinguished Digital Award. Mr. Candelon holds a master degree of the French Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole des Mines.