Hello Fanny, can you tell us about your background?
Fanny Dufaud: I graduated from business school and earned a Master's in Digital and Management of new Technologies in partnership with an engineering school. At the end of my education, I took on an intrapreneurship project at AXA, where I created an online service platform for the top management of AXA Bank. I then joined the company as a digital project manager, where I was in charge of setting up an e-business department.
Then, in 2017, I was invited to join BNP Paribas – more specifically, PACE. Today, I am a Strategy & Marketing Manager in the Innovation and New Business Models stream.
You mentioned the word stream… Is that term specific to your entity?
F.D: Before talking about streams, I should tell you a little about PACE and its organization. PACE stands for "Partners in Action for Customer Experience". This entity is part of a cross-functional approach to the retail banking and financial services businesses. Its goal is to support the transformation within these businesses, helping them to excel in customer experience, even going so far as to propose new business models that will serve as growth drivers.
To do this, PACE consists of several business-oriented streams or areas of expertise: Data & Analytics, Marketing, Innovation & New Business Models, Experience Design, Agile Transformation & Customer Journeys... My team is part of the Innovation & New Business Models stream and we support various Group entities on their strategic issues and in developing their business plans.
What attracted you to PACE?
F.D: Its strategic dimension! PACE is an entity that cuts across the Group's business lines and is international, offering an endless variety of topics, not to mention innovation, a field I am passionate about and which is inseparable from PACE. From day to day, PACE works on tight deadlines, in agile and collaborative mode. It's a demanding and supportive environment, whose values and way of working match my own.
In our industry, our challenges are permanent and they are the purpose of PACE's mission every day.
If you had to choose a representative project that you have recently worked on, which would it be?
F.D: The first thing that comes to mind is the e-commerce project carried out for Leasing Solutions*. The objective was to identify opportunities for new services and products for healthcare professionals. As with most of our projects, we conducted an internal analysis to determine our strengths, an external analysis of market trends and, finally, a survey of healthcare professionals themselves to find out their needs in the field. This work allowed us to identify areas of opportunity and launch a design sprint.
A design sprint ?
F.D: It’s business lingo. The goal is to design and test an innovative service prototype in five days… Five days is really a sprint!
What does your job consist of today? And how about your team?
F.D: My role is to support retail banks and specialized business lines** with their strategic issues. Together with my team, we conduct ad hoc studies and identify opportunities for innovation across the priority needs identified by the entities (housing, loans, etc.). We are also in charge of implementing and testing projects alongside the business lines, which are our customers.
What jobs are on offer at PACE?
F.D: It's simple: for every stream, there are three types of positions: the Expert, the Manager Coach and the Stream Leader.
The Expert, quite similar to a Project Owner, works on the co-design of solutions to improve the customer experience.
The Manager Coach contributes their expertise, skills and knowledge of agile practices. They also provide support and solve problems. At the same time, they support and challenge employees to develop their skills. Finally, the Stream Leader anticipates business and strategic changes. They build and maintain a constructive relationship with internal and external stakeholders to drive the strategic transformation of the business, which is the core purpose of PACE.
« There are three types of positions: the Expert, the Manager Coach and the Stream Leader. »
What do I need to apply to PACE?
F.D: We share several precise commonalities: benchmark expertise at the Group level, a strong capacity to cooperate, an ability to learn and adapt with agility, and a focus on customers and results.
Finally, on the career side, joining PACE is a great way to get started at the Group. Since we work for so many different entities, we have privileged contacts with each business and therefore opportunities to join them.
*BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions is one of the Group's four specialized business lines in rental and financing solutions for businesses.
**This refers to the networks of the Group's four retail banks operating in the Eurozone countries: BDDF in France, BNP Paribas Fortis in Belgium, BNL in Italy and BGL BNP Paribas in Luxembourg.