Our customers range from small & medium size companies and development agencies to Fortune 500 companies, all navigating the complexities of entrepreneurship, scaling-up innovation.
Based in France, Elsa is an entrepreneurial and strategically minded professional who worked and lived in Africa, Europe, Canada, USA and India. She brings over 25 years of operational & executive experience in corporate strategy, innovation management, strategic portfolio management, business development, corporate venturing and corporate finance.
As Chief Strategy Officer at Metamaterial Inc a Nasdaq listed scale-up in nanotechnologies during 2 years and Vice President Innovation and Business Development at Airbus during 12 years, she has been instrumental in defining and pivoting product, services and business strategies to accelerate growth and time to market while forging key strategic partnerships with established players and Deeptech. Elsa launched Airbus Corporate Venturing activities in 2015 and led Airbus Ventures Operating Team during 3 years. Elsa leverages structured & finance expertise from 8 years as seasoned banker at JP Morgan Chase and Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and 5 years at Alstom. She raised over $ 1.5 billion in debt, asset finance and equity.
Elsa launched EK Partners in 2019 and since 2024, she is fully dedicated to drive value creation and operational performance for her customers empowering management teams to meet their business objectives.
She is a speaker at Innovation international summits such as the Hello Tomorrow and Viva Tech. In 2016, she won the Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Award.
Elsa holds a MS from Toulouse Business School and a BS from Northeastern University in Boston. She speaks fluent French and English.
Boosting the portfolio strategic value of an aerospace leader CVC
Defined and implemented the strategy to create breakthrough business synergies between CVC portfolio & mother company. We boosted overall mother company strategic value generated from CVC portfolio while aligning with CVC investment thesis.
Based in France, Jean-Claude brings over 30 years of multi sector international experience in the fields of Transportation, Energy, Digital and Web based applications in the competences of innovation, corporate strategy, internal audit, business development and sales, marketing strategy, and project management.
Jean-claude has an extensive experience of launching new business ventures and start-ups, but also served in several multinational companies such as Airbus and Exxon/Esso. In the past decade, passionate by entrepreneurship and digital innovation, Jean-Claude has founded successful operating expert I.S companies specialized in business and process digitalization and artificial intelligence.
Before his dive into the frantic world of computer science, Jean-claude held the position of deputy VP innovation at Airbus, joining Elsa Keita to launch and build the Strategic Partnerships Department at Airbus Corporate Innovation.
Prior to working in innovation, Jean-claude was deputy VP Corporate Strategy at Airbus for over six years after having served time in corporate audit, and seven thrilling years in Sales and Services. Prior to joining Airbus, Jean-Claude spent 10 years in various senior position at Esso Inter-America and its subsidiaries (Miami Fl, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guyana) mainly in charge of Business development and Marketing. Jean-Claude joined EK Partners in 2024 as operating partner.
Jean-Claude holds an MBA from the EU Business School in Geneva and a BS in Marketing from the ESDE in Paris. He speaks fluent French English and conversational Spanish.
Defining & supporting the implementation of a product and business strategy to accelerate go to market strategy for a multimillion-dollar revenue Scale- up in the field of Nanotechnology:
We reviewed overall product portfolio performance, competitive positioning while setting-up strategic planning, portfolio management and business strategy. We have been instrumental in de-risking product development and pivoting company product & business strategy while setting-up key strategic partnerships including mergers and acquisitions.
Increasing the business and financial performance of a Fintech SME using A.I and deep learning :
Defining a midterm strategic plan for a Fintech company, enabling partial business pivoting by increasing services relying on Artificial Intelligence and deep learning algorithms to make greater advantage of expanding data base. The objective is to increase value generation of the database and create a significant competitive advantage by generating new services offering and tailor-made answers to customers’ demand.
Defining the strategic repositioning of a leading Innovation Center generating a new service offer boosting strategic value:
Shaped acceleration programs to increase value creation and strategic impact for portfolio companies while fostering collaborative innovation & financial support from private and public organizations. Boost innovation center regional expansion by developing a global network of strategic partners including leading corporates, investment funds and other innovation players in the innovation space.
Driving value creation for a mid-cap deep tech Private Equity Fund portfolio:
From acquisitions and daily operations to due diligence we bring our industry expertise and operational acumen to drive value creation and operational improvements within portfolio companies and ensures PE firm’s goals are being met. We also defined strategic rationale for further acquisitions to be merged with some portfolio companies.
Accelerating the application of social capital and technology in Africa through the creation of a joint acceleration program between African and European development agencies and leading corporates in aerospace
We brought together development agencies, start-ups, entrepreneurs and members of the tech community. The acceleration program was dedicated to de-risking and accelerating product and solutions time to market while building business model around business viability and sustainability. The selected pool of African start-ups was actively working on solutions in agriculture and infrastructure including automation, blockchain, artificial intelligence, data analytics, material composites and manufacturing.
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