Francois Laborie
Cognite North America
President
Francois is President of Cognite North America, overseeing Cognite’s expansion and operations in the US and Canada. Cognite serves as a strategic technology partner for more than 40 industrial companies, including Saudi Aramco, BP, and OMV, helping them scale their digital transformation efforts with data-driven solutions that increase production, revamp maintenance routines, and boost sustainability initiatives. In 2020, Cognite raised one of the largest Series A funding rounds ever in Europe from Accel and became Microsoft’s first Global ISV partner from Norway. Francois has had an extensive career in the technology industry, serving in both research and executive roles. Before shifting to lead Cognite North America, Francois managed Cognite’s overall marketing activities, including product marketing and the Cognite partner network, as Chief Marketing Officer. Francois has been at the heart of the transformation of the media industry through technology. He spent 11 years as COO and CCO of Vizrt, where he focused on disrupting journalism by empowering media content creators with visual storytelling tools. Before that, Francois managed research projects on collective decision-making and human-computer interfaces at the Airbus Group Corporate Research Center. Francois has master’s degrees in computer science and engineering from the National Institute of Applied Sciences and a Ph.D. from the Toulouse Computer Science Research Institute.