For more than 25 years, Gilles Bouchard has succeeded in the technology industry as an engineer, manager and senior executive. As a leader, he has a proven track record of growing businesses, building consumer technology brands, solving operational challenges and forging strong strategic partnerships. He joined Livescribe as CEO in December 2011.
Previously, Gilles was the CEO of Opnext, a maker of fiber optic components, originally founded as part of Hitachi. While there he grew sales to record levels by renewing the product line and implementing major operational improvements.
Earlier, Gilles spent 17 years at Hewlett-Packard, working his way up to executive vice president of Global Operations and CIO, reporting directly to CEOs Carly Fiorina and Mark Hurd. Gilles was instrumental in the company's dramatic turn-around in the mid-2000s, earning recognition as one of CIO Magazine’s Top 100 executives. Earlier in his career, Gilles built HP’s North American consumer PC division into a multi-billion dollar business, growing the HP Pavilion brand to an industry leader with 40 percent of the retail market.
Prior to HP, Gilles served as a researcher at the IBM Watson Laboratories, earning the prestigious “IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award.”
A native of Paris, France, Gilles is an avid cyclist, equestrian, climber and skier with a certification as a backcountry ski guide. Gilles and his wife Elizabeth have been active supporters of the CMTA, a non-profit organization dedicated to finding a cure for the neuro-muscular condition called Charcot-Marie-Tooth.
He holds an MS in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley and a BS in engineering from Ecole Centrale de Lyon, France.
