Alan Allman Associates announces the appointment of Valérie Thomas Le Yar as Vice President and Managing Director France.
With solid leadership experience in France and abroad, Valérie Thomas Le Yar will be tasked in particular with strengthening synergies among the firms of the Alan Allman Associates ecosystem in France, highlighting the complementarity of their expertise, and supporting their development.
In this interview, she discusses her career, her vision of consulting in the age of AI, and her priorities for Alan Allman Associates in France.
I have been fortunate to work in very different fields: airline operations at Air France, the creation of Unilode’s French subsidiary, logistics for the boating industry, restaurants in Paris, as well as trading in China, and several years in the United States and New Zealand.
The first lesson is that performance always comes from execution: a strategy is only as good as the quality with which it is deployed on the ground. The second is adaptability. Every culture and every sector has its own codes, and understanding them before acting makes all the difference.
Finally, I learned that client trust is built over time, through consistency and reliability. These are valuable benchmarks for a group like Alan Allman Associates, which is growing fast in demanding fields.
Having created, grown and then sold my own companies gave me a very concrete relationship with management. As an entrepreneur, every decision directly affects cash flow, teams and the long-term viability of the business.
That is why I know what it means for a business owner to entrust us with the keys to their transformation. This decision is never taken lightly: it is the result of long reflection, often conducted internally, and comes when the owner has found that the necessary skills are not available in-house. Entrusting us with their company is, in a way, entrusting us with their baby.
It is a sign of great trust, and we have a duty to honor it: to lead the transformation while preserving the DNA that the owner has instilled in their company, while adapting it to an ecosystem that is evolving very quickly.
My experience as an executive in large organizations has, for its part, taught me to structure, to delegate and to get very different areas of expertise working together. My management style combines the two: agility and boldness to seize opportunities, and rigor to turn them into sustainable growth.
Artificial intelligence will profoundly transform the way we create value. Repetitive tasks will be automated, and clients will expect less volume and more impact from us: measurable results, deep expertise, and the ability to support them from strategy through to implementation.
The first challenge will therefore be to rethink our business models, giving priority to the value created over the time spent. The second will be to attract and grow talent, training people on new tools without losing what sets us apart: judgment, relationships and knowledge of our clients’ businesses.
Finally, trust, particularly on cybersecurity and data issues, will become a decisive criterion of choice.
This is one of the group’s great strengths: we combine management consulting, recognized expertise in HR information systems (HRIS), very strong implementation know-how, and a powerful IT services company that develops cybersecurity and AI solutions. Few players can support a client from strategic thinking all the way to operational deployment.
I want our firms to get to know each other better, share their client accounts and build integrated offerings together. This requires simple rituals, shared commercial governance on key accounts, and recognition of collective successes.
Clients should see the richness of the group as an advantage, without losing the close relationship they have with their own firm.
Each firm has its own history, culture and expertise, and that is precisely what makes it valuable. My role is not to standardize, but to set a common direction in which everyone can recognize themselves.
I strongly believe in listening: I will spend time in the field, meeting the teams and understanding what works. Bringing people together also means sharing clear objectives, celebrating successes and creating opportunities to work together.
Many of our people are engineers and top-level experts; they need purpose, autonomy and ambitious projects. If we give them that, belonging to the group will become a source of pride in addition to their attachment to their firm.
My ambition is to make Alan Allman Associates a leading player in France, recognized for its ability to support companies in their transformations, from strategy to execution.
My first priorities are clear. First, listen: meet the teams, the heads of the firms and our main clients. Second, accelerate commercial synergies and build joint offerings, particularly around AI and cybersecurity. Finally, strengthen the group’s attractiveness to attract and retain the best talent.
I want to move forward with method and pragmatism, building on the many strengths already in place.