Rochas, who succeeds Pierre-Louis de Guillebon, is responsible of managing international connectivity and transmission services for wholesale voice, mobile, internet and security services.
“I am looking for a collective engagement from the IC teams over the coming year. Engagement on innovation, development of new offers and of finding new ways of doing things for continual improvement in order to satisfy internal and external customers, and to develop our market share,” he said.
Rochas previously worked as head of the Group strategy team so his experience in strategy and development, as well as the management of complex business activities in a context of significant transformation, puts him in great stead to lead the team.
“My intention is to accelerate the growth of international carriers and I plan to build on the expertise, engagement and enthusiasm of the teams here to make IC a growing entity which continues to be profitable,” he added.
The creation of the WIN (wholesale and international networks) entity is recognition by the Orange group that wholesale has real growth potential, Rochas said. “Wholesale is seen clearly by the Group as a way of increasing the value of its assets. IC has already greatly contributed to the success of WIN, even after only a few months since its launch. I plan to leverage the power and the scale of the Orange group and with all the advantages that it brings to our activities, in terms of geographical presence or indeed the innovative resources available.”
There are ambitious plans afoot at Orange in the deployment of IP transit and IPX points of presence (PoPs). “Over the next two years, Orange will develop more presence in Europe in the major ‘FLAP’ cities, (Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris) and continue in affiliates’ markets including Romania and Spain,” Rochas sad. “Additionally, Orange will widely expand its presence in Africa and Middle East, the USA, and most recently, in Lagos, Nigeria.”
Since joining the Group in 2006, Rochas has held various posts, most recently as executive director of Orange Normandy and Centre-Val-de-Loire regions in France. During this time he was responsible for implementing Orange strategy and developing the operational performance in terms of sales, customer relations and network expansion. Prior to that he was the regional head of network build and run for the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France, responsible for the deployment and maintenance of the Orange mobile and fixed networks, and between 2010-2014 he was head of the Group Strategy at Orange, where he was responsible for business modelling and business performance in the home line of business.
Before joining Orange, Rochas worked for the French government and spent several years in the cabinet office of various Ministers with portfolios ranging from social affairs to e-administration and the development of SMEs.
