Nathalie Collin


Nathalie Collin is a French business woman who works in the digital field. She has worked in the record, press, media and communication sectors. Every job she occupied was linked with the impact of digital on the firms' development.
She is currently Deputy Chief Executive Officer in charge of Digital Business and Communication of Le Groupe La Poste.

Career

Nathalie Collin has a master's degree in business and tax law and is a graduate of the ESSEC business school. She has held posts as a consultant at Arthur Andersen, CFO of the "Cité mondiale des vins et spiritueux", Europe CFO of Interleaf in London then CFO of Interleaf.
In 1999, she was recruited by Emmanuel de Buretel as CEO of Virgin Music France. In 2002, when Virgin was absorbed by its parent company EMI Music, she became CEO of the whole entity, then Chairperson of the EMI Music France Group. She headed up EMI France until 2009. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the French National Syndicate for Phonographic Publishing, and treasurer and Vice-Chairperson of the French Civil Society of Phonographic Producers.
She left EMI Music in February 2009 and joined the Libération newspaper as Chairperson of the Management Board, working alongside Édouard de Rothschild, the newspaper's main shareholder. She balanced the newspapers accounts, launched a new format of Libération, developed a premium digital service offer and brought a new shareholder into the business, Bruno Ledoux, who became the majority shareholder with Édouard de Rothschild. In June 2009, she proposed to implement a tax for Internet access providers in order to contribute to financing the French written press.
In 2010, she contributed to creating a digital kiosk for press publishers, in conjunction with five other daily papers and three news magazines. In the same year, as director and chairperson of the Paris Daily Newspaper Cooperative, she participated in establishing the recovery plan for Presstalis, a press distribution company. She met Claude Perdriel when looking for shareholders for Libération. In 2011, on his request, she joined Le Nouvel Observateur as Chairperson of the Management Board and CEO of the Group.
She developed the digital activities of the Nouvel Observateur Group. She supported the acquisition of Rue89. In March 2012, with Olivier Wicker and Laurent Joffrin, she launched Obsession, a lifestyle magazine distributed with the Nouvel Observateur, with a circulation of 500,000 copies. Working with Claude Perdriel, in the face of a difficult economic climate in the press and news magazine sector, she implemented a business restructuring plan to rebalance the company accounts, notably by turning TéléObs into a two-weekly publication, renegotiating with the printers, cutting staff and developing digital revenues.
In conjunction with other publishers, she was behind the initiative to create the Association de la presse d'information politique et générale. In this role, she worked actively to find a better breakdown of value between search engines and press publishers. Within this context, she established dialogue and relations with German, Italian, Swiss and Portuguese publisher trade associations.
As Chairperson of the AIPG, Nathalie Collin took part in the negotiations between publishers and Google aimed at obtaining recognition of the value of press content and establishing the principles for a commercial partnership and support for the digital transition of the press. The negotiations were coordinated by Marc Schwartz, a mediator appointed by the French public authorities. The agreement was signed at the Élysée. Eric Schmidt and François Hollande qualified the agreement as historic. It was the first time that one of the world's leading internet players had accepted to negotiate with a group of publishers in order to develop their digital activities and support them through this transition, with a view to mutual benefit. As part of the agreement, Google agreed to finance the innovative digital developments of press publishers through the creation of a €60 million fund. Nathalie Collin was appointed joint Chairperson of the Google Fund for Digital Innovation in the Press along with the vice-Chairperson of Google Europe, Carlo d'Asaro Biondo7. The fund has been operational since September 2013.
Within the AIPG, Nathalie Collin supported Pierre Lescure's proposal for a tax on connected devices. With the SEPM and AIPG, she supported the neutrality of the VAT rate for the online press. The VAT rate for the online press was aligned with that of the written press in February 2014. On 12 March 2014, she resigned from her positions at the Nouvel Observateur. At this time, the take-over of the magazine by Xavier Niel, Pierre Bergé and Matthieu Pigasse was being finalised.
In April 2014, she joined Philippe Wahl on the Le Groupe La Poste’s Executive Committee, taking up the position of Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Communication Director for the Group. She is in charge of developing a strategy focused on digital and competitive stakes. On 10 February 2015, she was appointed Deputy Chief Executive Officer in charge of Digital Business and Communication.
As part of her function, she develops the digital strategy of Le Groupe La Poste over the Internet of things. This policy was supported by Emmanuel Macron. In January 2016, she was part of a ministerial delegation, led by the French Minister for Economic Affairs, Emmanuel Macron in Las Vegas and San Francisco. In 2016, during the Consumer Electronic Show, she presented a platform with connected objects. In May 2016, in order to develop La Poste's strategy in personal data management and artificial intelligence, she led the buy-out of ProbaYes, a start-up from Grenoble, France, with indepth expertise in predictive analytics solutions.
In August and November 2016, she co-signed a forum to defend the principle of inviolable encryption of communications in order to guarantee the individual freedoms of citizens and another one which alerts on the risks of social exclusion linked to the dematerialization of public services. Both were issued by Conseil National du Numerique, the French Digital Council.
In September 2017, Nathalie Collin has sponsored the competition organized by Station F to find the best web developer of France.
In January 2019, she co-signed a forum to reinvent the digital in France with 10 others top digital leaders.

Distinctions

Nathalie Collin was awarded the "Chevalier de l'ordre national du Mérite" on the request of the French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand,. She received the decoration from Claude Perdriel.
She was also appointed "Chevalier de l'ordre de la Légion d'honneur", on 1 January 2015.

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