With Digital Volunteers, BNP Paribas Group makes its best skills available to Start-ups and SMEs
Involved in the “Digital Volunteers” european program, BNP Paribas Group offers to start-ups and SMEs a direct access to in-house experts to accelerate their growth and their digital transformation. Spotlight on this major program with Agustina Rosenfeld, Data Strategy and Change Management specialist at BNP Paribas.
"BNP Paribas pays particular attention to ensuring that its activity has a positive impact on our stakeholders"
Meeting with Agustina Rosenfeld, who leads the "Digital Volunteers" program at BNP Paribas.
What is the European program “Digital Volunteers”?
With the digitalisation of services and products spanning across industries and sectors, businesses are increasingly recognizing the need to upskill and train employees with more specialized and technical skills to remain competitive on the global market. At the same time, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) find it harder to compete with larger companies and access the same talent pool of skilled workforce.
The European Commission has then launched the “Digital Volunteers” initiative to bridge the skills gap and facilitate access to a talent pool of professionals by connecting SMEs and their larger counterparts. Concretely, the “Digital Volunteers” program aims at building a network of European companies, ready to support the digitalisation of SMEs on a pro-bono basis, and through their in-house experts.
Why the BNP Paribas Group involved in it?
The contribution of companies towards meeting environmental and social challenges is now a major topic around the world. BNP Paribas pays particular attention to ensuring that its activity has a positive impact on our stakeholders – customers, employees, shareholders – and on society. We want to contribute to a better future. Engaging in “Digital Volunteers” is part of our commitment to being the Bank that contributes to changing the world.
The European Union’s leading bank and key player in international banking industry transformed by the digital revolution, at BNP Paribas we are no strangers to the value of said transformation as well as the associated challenges. Our Digital Mentors are excited in assisting a SME through a mentoring scheme that enables the transfer of skills and competences.
What types of mentees are you targeting with this mentorship program?
We are looking for SMEs, social entreprises, NGOs, or micro-enterprises across any industry committed or already engaged in their digital transformation and / or sustainable development. For our pilot, we are looking for a mentee in France.
Concretely, how will this program unfold? What skills and expertise will you make available?
Our program will start with a first series of workshops during which we will refine both the problematique as well as the mentoring panel to better adapt to your needs. Following this phase, our commitment is to conduct weekly or bi-weekly mentoring sessions for a minimum of 4-hours / month to guide and support you in the delivery of a concrete solution by November 2021.
In terms of expertise, we are bringing together skilled professionals from the Business, Digital, Data, and Legal departments that can support you broadly across digital transformation, data, Artificial Intelligence & analytics, and sustainable development:
- Digital Transformation: business development and partnership building, market positioning, digital marketing
- Data: data management, including data acquisition strategies, Functional architecture (inc. adoption of cloud solutions, development of APIs), data privacy and protection advisory (for example GDPR, E-privacy);
- Artificial Intelligence: adoption of Analytics and AI (selection of tools, methodologies, controls, best practices), advisory on risks related to AI
- Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG): development of sustainable strategy based on digital
- Methodologies: Agile, Lean
Here are some of the experts involved in the program:
- Rim Tehraoui – Group Chief Data Officer & Global ESG Risks Executive at BNP Paribas
- Laurent Herbillon – Director Open Innovation @ BNP Paribas
- Alexis Gros – Chief Data Officer at BivwAk! by BNP Paribas
- Martin Pailhes – Global Co-Manager of the LEGAL Digital & IP Platform at BNP Paribas
- Lea Deleris – Head of RISK Artificial Intelligence Research at BNP Paribas
- Fabrice le Chatelier – Head of Data Science Office chez BNP Paribas
What are the steps not to be missed for companies wishing to apply?
For companies willing to participate, please submit your interest to Agustina Rosenfeld – agustina.rosenfeld(a)bnpparibas.com, from BNP Paribas Group Data Office, by no later than August 4th, including:
- Company name, industry, mission statement
- Name and role in your company
- Summary of the challenge at stake for which you are seeking mentoring
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Rest assure that within BNP Paribas we hold ourselves to the highest standards when it comes to respecting confidentiality and data protection.