Thales eSecurity to be regrouped with new chief exec from January

Thales eSecurity division will be grouped into a new Digital Business Unit from January 1 2018.

The rest of the unit will comprise big data analysts Guavus and 200 artificial intelligence experts in France and Canada. Thales says the Digital Business Unit has been created to regroup its main digital businesses and expertise to better support the ambitions of its customers.

At the same time, Cindy Provin will become chief executive officer of Thales eSecurity, stepping up after a successful stint as the division’s president and chief strategy and marketing officer.

Thales eSecurity is considered to be a major player in cyber security and data protection, serving customers from offices based in the United States, United Kingdom and Hong Kong.

Ms Provin has a long and proven track record within Thales Group - a French multinational company that designs and builds electrical systems and provides services for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security sectors.

As president of Thales eSecurity, she led and directed the organisation to high growth and  profit. She was also instrumental in driving the division’s position as a world leader in data security and its market-leading position in hardware security modules and encryption.

From the turn of 2018, though, Ms Provin will be responsible for delivering a portfolio of security solutions to protect data wherever it is created, shared or stored as customers digitally transform their organisations.

Thales has invested more than €1 billion (£881.7 million) over the last three years in key digital technologies, including cyber security, the Internet of Things, big data and artificial intelligence.

In other Thales-related developments, the corporation has just acquired digital security solutions provider Gemalto in a deal worth around $5.43 billion (£4.79 billion).