Denis Payre was one of the two co-founders of the French software company, Business Objects, in 1990 and was its COO for 7 years. During this time, he was managing 80% of the headcount and 100% of the revenue. He launched the company in 54 countries including all large developed countries. A large proportion of Global 1000 companies started using the company’s software intensively under his tenure including accounts such as Anheuser Bush, British Telecom, Disney, Goldman Sachs, Harvard University, Renault, Nasa, Shell, Texas Instrument. The company became the world leader in the field of business intelligence. In 1994, the company became the first European software company ever to be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. According to the Wall Street Journal, its listing was also the most successful one on Nasdaq that year. In 1996, Denis Payre and his partner were named Entrepreneurs of the Year by the US edition of Business Week next to Steve Jobs and Steven Spielberg.
In 1997, he retired to take care of his young family and became an angel investor. He also launched the Paris-based non-profit organisation Croissance Plus to foster the creation of a better environment for growth companies, and he took part into similar initiatives at a European level in Brussels as co-founder of Entrepreneurs for Growth.
In 2000, he co-founded Kiala in Brussels and became the CEO of this logistic services company specialized in setting up and managing collection point networks offering active consumers and nomad professionals the option to be delivered in a store instead of being delivered at home and the option to return parcels via these stores. The company has a built a unique and powerful Technology Platform to automate all processes in such a network investing over 15 Million Euro in this area. Kiala is the leader in Europe in its space with 4.300 Kiala Points in four countries (Belgium, France, Holland, Luxembourg). The company is handling 50.000 parcels per day. Kiala has attracted most large distance selling companies in Europe such as Otto, Quelle-Neckermann, Redcats and Yves Rocher; and several large e-tailers such as Pixmania and e-Bay. The company has also started becoming a significant player on the markets for spare parts logistics with customers such as IBM and on the market for reverse logistics with customers such as Illiad, HP and Nokia. Kiala was awarded the World Mail Award in the Technology category in May 2005. Kiala is currently working on expanding its network in Austria, Germany, Spain and the UK.
Denis Payre is 43, was born in Lyon and is a graduate of Essec business school in Paris. He has four kids and he enjoys sailing, snow skiing and water skiing.
