Career

Twenty years of critical systems. Today, artificial intelligence consulting.

I help leaders understand their situation and decide what to do, in France and Switzerland. This practice rests on twenty years of responsibility for critical information systems, in industry, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, up to an ISO 15189-accredited hospital environment.

Christophe Picou

Role

Founder of VEIA.AI, an artificial intelligence consulting firm. Business leaders, France and Switzerland.

Experience

Twenty years of critical information systems in industry, pharmaceuticals and healthcare. Two years responsible for the information system of ISO 15189-accredited hospital laboratories.

Field

France and Switzerland. Regulated or sensitive sectors: health and biotechnology, industry, services. Based in Colmar.

Education and languages

Higher diploma in management IT, network administration option. Vocational baccalaureate in network maintenance. French mother tongue, professional English.

Today

The same boundary, at the scale of a leadership team.

Since 2024, I have led VEIA.AI, an artificial intelligence consulting firm. I help leaders understand their situation and decide what to do. I clarify and prepare decisions; the leadership takes them, and its teams and specialists carry them out. My doctrine holds in three words: decide before integrating.

The first conversation

Understanding the request and checking that I can answer it. Scope, deliverable, schedule and price are set before starting.

The initial strategic diagnostic

The first consulting engagement. A strategic map of the situation, the priority decisions and a proposal for what follows.

A follow-up defined separately

Leadership session with written record of decisions, strategic review of a project or a supplier proposal, ongoing support to the leadership.

Speaking

Talks, sessions before an executive committee or a board, panels. An engagement defined in its own right.

Details on veia.ai (in French) →

Speaking

The doctrine, said out loud.

Six filmed talks between 2025 and 2026, on the VEIA.AI channel. The tone and framing I bring to the executive committee. Talks in French.

We are still in a moment of freedom

September 2026

Deciding before integrating: the real question on AI in 2026

April 2026

AI beyond the technical debate: sovereignty, cyber, governance, geopolitics

January 2026

Artificial intelligence: the mirror of human disorder

November 2025

AI: between sovereignty, security and meaning. Decision becomes strategic

October 2025

AI: choose before integrating, avoid failure, gain clarity

August 2025

The VEIA.AI channel →

The markers

The career, dated.

2024 - present

VEIA.AI - Founder

Artificial intelligence consulting firm. Business leaders, France and Switzerland.

2022 - 2024

GHRMSA - Head of the operational IT process

A 6,000-person hospital group. ISO 15189-accredited medical biology and pathology laboratories, five departments, sensitive health data. Replacement of a critical laboratory information system carried through in continuous operation.

2022

Pluris Expertise, Besançon - Audit and service development

Internal audit and building of service strategies, working with experts and management.

2000 - 2021

Critical systems and networks

Novartis, Alcon, Veolia, PSA, Le Coq Sportif, Wrigley, GHRMSA. Industry, pharmaceuticals, distribution, health. Multi-site administration, delivery of critical projects, leadership of technical teams.

Recognition and output

Work dated, published, cited.

Parliamentary mission

Written contributor to the mission on the alignment of artificial intelligence systems entrusted to Senator Vanina Paoli-Gagin. Two publications cited and a synthesis note retained among the written contributions. Report submitted to the Government on 29 July 2026. The detail →

Publications

Manifesto of decisional AI sovereignty, White Paper on AI governance, note “Governing dependence”. Op-eds published at the Swiss Board Forum. The corpus →

Memberships

Member of the Swiss Board Forum. Member of the CCIG, Geneva Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Services. Member of MEDEF Alsace.

Press

Analysis cited on AI self-regulation, Le Temps, Anouch Seydtaghia, 30 September 2026. In French. Le Temps → VEIA analysis →

Interview “Artificial intelligence: companies are tackling the subject head-on”, L'Alsace and DNA, 6 September 2026. In French. L'Alsace → DNA →

Feature “Ces entreprises qui sont passées à l'IA”, Point Eco Alsace, CCI Alsace Eurométropole, September 2026. In French. Point Eco →

The story

Where this way of working comes from. Twenty years spent in the machine room, and what it teaches about responsibility.

I did not discover technology in books. I learned it hands-on, from the cable to the server, in environments where a failure shows immediately.

Where I kept the machines running

Industry, pharmaceuticals, distribution, health. Different environments, one same requirement: that everything works, all the time.

The experience, underneath

For more than twenty years, I held the information systems of companies of every kind.

Servers, networks, messaging, backup, virtualisation, telephony: the invisible infrastructure that keeps an organisation running without anyone thinking about it. I installed it, administered it, repaired it, often under pressure, always with the same rule. Nothing works on its own, and someone must answer for it.

That responsibility rose a notch in environments where error is costly. At Alcon and Novartis, I learned the demands of the pharmaceutical world. Then, at Mulhouse hospital, I carried the information system of the medical biology laboratories, under ISO 15189 accreditation: the replacement of a critical system carried through without ever breaking operations, the interfacing with the patient record, the handling of a cyberattack, the degraded procedures and recovery plans. Auditability, traceability, human control, these are the words we find again today, almost identical, in the governance of artificial intelligence.

I never held these systems alone. I led teams of technicians, ran critical projects, and connected the technical field, management and, at the hospital, the medical teams. Translating from one world to another, making those who decide and those who execute understand one another: that is no doubt where the part that matters most today was formed.

What that means, concretely

The vocabulary of a field profession, not a brochure.

Windows servers Active Directory Exchange SCCM V-Block virtualisation LAN / WAN networks Cisco IP telephony IBM TSM backup NAS storage Middleware & instruments Data extraction ISO 15189 Cyber crisis management Operational continuity Team leadership Critical project delivery

This is not a list to impress. It is proof that, when I speak of governing an artificial intelligence, I know exactly which machine, which flows and which responsibilities lie underneath.

Twenty years holding machines that others depended on. Then a question that rises: who answers when the machine decides in our place?

This is the ground VEIA.AI comes from. Not a theory about artificial intelligence, but a long habit of critical systems and what they demand. AI governance, for me, begins where I have always worked: at the boundary between what the machine does and what a human remains responsible for.

The full profile →Get in touch →