Issam KIFOULY, CEO and Founder of UbiShield, is graduated in electrical engineering from the Ecole Supérieure Polytechnique de Dakar and owns an Executive MBA from Montpellier Business School.

With more than 15 years’ practical experience in the production, transmission and distribution of electrical energy, he worked as an expert in protection and automation and control systems for semi-digital (without IEC61850 process bus) and fully digital substations (with IEC61850 process bus), as a telecoms expert for critical infrastructures (SDH and MPLS) and as a cybersecurity expert (IT & OT).

Throughout his career, he has worked for major telecoms and energy production, transport and distribution companies, as well as solution manufacturers and integrators such as Sonatel, Wartsila West Africa, Senelec, Schneider Electric, Alstom, General Electric and RTE International.

During his last positions as Technical Project Manager and Hardware and Networks Architect at General Electric for 7 years, and Project Director in the international division of RTE (Réseau d’électricité de France) for 4 years, he worked on several national projects (France) including the Electre V3, Smart Electre, Postes Intelligents (the first fully digital substation with optical measurement handsets) and R#SPACE, the future interoperable ecosystem for control and protection of RTE substations, and on several international projects in Ukraine, Serbia, Senegal, Ivory Coast, etc., to provide standards specifications and supervision for project implementation.

Open-minded, curious, a project team player and results-oriented, he set up his company to meet the strong demands of sustainable development through universal access to energy.

Drawing on his many areas of expertise, he is convinced that a holistic approach to solutions is essential to ensure a better fit. He sees collaboration, co-creation and training as the pillars of sustainable and resilient innovations.

To provide the best support to its customers, he is committed to continuous training, and holds several international certificates attesting to the highest standards, proven and relevant experience, and best practices in its chosen fields, such as project management (Project Management Professional certification from the Project Management Institute – PMI) and cybersecurity for non-critical and critical infrastructures (ISO27001 certification from ISO, Certified Information Security System Professional CISSP and Certified Cloud Security Professional CCSP from the International Information System Security Certification Consortium – ISC2).