Matteo Ainardi joined the Paris office of Arthur D. Little in 2016, after a business course, notably within an EADS division (now Airbus Group) and at the European operator Eutelsat.
Appointed Managing Partner for France and Morocco in January 2024, he shares his vision of the firm here, his development priorities, and his way of bringing maximum value to the managers he accompanies. In a few years, the Paris office has gone from around twenty to nearly a hundred consultants.
Consultor: in 1886, it was to respond to “technological rupturesWho affects companies of the time that Arthur D. Little, a chemist by training, founded the eponymous firm. Almost 140 years later, is it still the base of your interventions?
Matteo Ainardi : From the outset, our founder had the right intuition; Technological ruptures deeply transform the life of organizations. He understood that they could not be treated on the fringes, but had to be fully integrated into the economic model and in the business strategy. Since then, Arthur D. Little has accompanied these transformations throughout the 20th century, then the 21st. This conviction remains, even today, at the heart of our approach. And because the ruptures are not only technological, we also support our customers in the face of strategic, regulatory and societal discontinuities.
Our mission is to support managers in these key moments, where the competitive environment requires strong choices. Our role is to help them make the right arbitrations, to prioritize the most promising initiatives, to bring out essential subjects. This implies being permanently in the anticipation, innovation and redefinition of business models, if necessary.
About 80 % of our projects are linked to the strategy, but, beyond the definition, we also intervene on the implementation: reorganizations, transformations, creation of joint ventures … We intervene in many sectors, but always with a demand for sharp and targeted expertise, far from a general approach.
Precisely, Arthur D. Little favors a sectoral approach, the functional expertise working in addition. For what ?
At Arthur D. Little, we make the assumed choice of a sectoral approach, with functional expertise that come in support. Our ambition is to reach the highest level of excellence in each industry that we cover. This approach, which seems to me characteristic of our office, is also very appreciated by our customers.
Our value proposition is based on a fine understanding of sectoral dynamics. Faced with our customers, we mobilize senior teams, experts in their sector, capable of conducting in -depth strategic reflection. Our functional specialists – in reorganization, digital, transformation, etc. – intervene in addition, providing sharp expertise on transverse issues. Their role is to enrich the sectoral reflection, and their contribution grows more and more.
This sectoral positioning is reflected in our very organization. We structure each practice around 3 or 4 partners, combining business expertise and targeted functional skills, for example in strategic restructuring (“Turnaround”) or supply chain (“Supply Chain”) as needed.
The Private Equity is part of the same logic: with around 25 to 30 % of our activity, it develops in the sectors where we are historically present, carried in particular by one of our partners, Guillaume Picq.
Our sectoral anchoring remains marked by a strong technological and scientific dimension: in Paris, we mainly intervene in aerospace, defense, energy, transport, pharmacy, telecoms or the mining sector. But our sectoral coverage also extends to consumer goods, luxury, and, via our Casablanca office, financial services.
Born American, Arthur D. Little now has a center of gravity in Europe, its shareholding structure being based in Brussels : is it its main development line ?
No. However, in sectors such as aerospace or defense that I know well and where the question of “strategic assets” is significantly arising today, being an independent structure, with European governance, constitutes a real asset. It is also a factor of trust for customers of transport, pharmacy or energy.
Our presence remains fully international with 50 offices in 40 countries. Outside Europe, one of our development axes is Morocco, where we have two partners – in addition to our 16 partners in France. The Casablanca office, opened in April 2024, already brings together a dozen consultants.
This development is based on both an entrepreneurial project – carried by Sami Chabenne – and on a shared conviction: the African continent represents a strong potential for strategy advice. Moreover, many of our customers have encouraged us to strengthen our commitment to the region. We are only at the start, but we are already carrying out very beautiful projects.
In Paris, we continue a sustained dynamic, with the priority of the strengthening of our key sectoral practices, whether historically strong or growing.
