Damien Perrot
On the power and impact of responsive innovation
After graduating from the Vatel Hospitality School, Damien PERROT joined Accor in 1998, as
IT Project manager for the Wagon-Lits Company. He was then appointed Project manager in
the Procurement Department. From 2000 to 2012, he successfully occupied various positions within the Hotels Equipment. Services: as IT Project leader first to eventually Department Director and Design & Technical Services Communication Director in 2009. In 2013, he joined the ibis Family teams, as
Technical Vice-President for Europe. Since 2014, Damien has been leading the Group Global Design department. As of February 2021, he is also in charge of the Innovation.
Damien has been fond of cuisine since his childhood and of board sports later on.
Damien’s major challenge today is to define the Design strategy for each Brand and ensure
to reinforce the brand equity and brand identity, bringing his team and the group strategy
beyond hospitality traditional borders in terms of design and innovation. Always respecting
operational obligations, the Global Design and Innovation department is increasingly looking
for creativity to build experiences and arouse emotions, while also increasing the
performance for our investors.
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Vivatech highlights power of new thinking
“Wellbeing needs to be integrated in every innovation”
Damien Perrot is the global head of design and innovation at Accor, with overall responsibility for inventing new products and services throughout the Group. Yann Le Floc’h is a seasoned designer who is also the CEO and Co-founder of Stairwage – the company chosen as the winner of the Health to Wealth Vivatech Challenge.
In this episode of Health To Wealth, Damien and Yann discuss the role of wellbeing in developing new innovations, and especially the part that it played in creating Stairwage, an app that allows employees to have access to their salary before the end of the month. Damien explains that wellness plays a central role in all Accor’s innovation activity. As an example he cites hotelF1 the low-budget chain which offers access to those who have never been able to afford a hotel previously. He talks about other exciting start-ups such as Orbisk, which uses AI to analyse restaurant waste, and Glowee, which creates lighting from microbes, and their potential to improve wellbeing among employees and customers. Yann, meanwhile, explains how he came to invent Stairwage, and how it improves the financial wellbeing among a company’s employees by enabling them to absorb shocks, avoid debt, and be paid fairly. You’ll hear that Stairwage was chosen for the award above all for the passion of the team behind it.
