Walking through London’s grey and darkening buildings on a typical autumnal night was a young, driven and budding French entrepreneur, who was navigating his way to the nearest tube station, when he found himself on Park Lane.
As he passed a blazingly well-lit building he marvelled at its grandiose stature, the bright lights and the impeccably regimented and trained doormen who ushered in impossibly well groomed patrons from their black cabs and Rolls Royces.
Stanislas de Bentzmann was on his first visit to London and he vowed there and then, that the next time he would return, he would be able to afford a stay in the Dorchester Hotel.
That was in the 1980s. In 2000, Stanislas was named in Challenges 500 Richest French People.
“Hitting the $2billion mark in the next few years”
Now in 2026, The Dorchester is Stanislas’ regular residence on his visits to the UK’s capital. His most recent was last year, where he sealed the deal on his first British acquisition, acquiring Ubertas Consulting and rebranding the company as Devoteam UK.
Alongside his brother Godefroy, Stanislas launched their tech consulting firm Devoteam in 1995. 30 years later, with 11,000 employees and surpassing $1 billion in revenue “with hitting the $2billion mark in the next few years”, Stanislas appreciates his stays at The Dorchester more than ever. It serves as a reminder of just how far he has come and proof that hard work, diligence and the ability to move with the times is paramount to building successful enterprises.
It comes as absolutely no surprise that Stanislas’ favourite business book is Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim C. Collins. The management book describes how companies transition from being good companies to great companies, and how most companies fail to make the transition. Based on a five-year research project comparing companies that made the leap to those that did not, Collins shows that greatness is not primarily a function of circumstance but largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.
Inspiration from Silicon Valley
That discipline was instilled early on in Stanislas’ life which saw him excel in school before graduating in Marketing at Bordeaux’s INSEEC Business School in 1987. He then went on to study computer science at the University of San José in Silicon Valley.
Being in and around the future tech stars of Silicon Valley provided Stanislas with the inspiration, confidence and transformational tools to build his business empire, where he would dedicate his working life to driving innovation and growth in the technology sector. Soon after leaving Silicon Valley for his homeland in France, he founded his own start-up, Message, a company setting up production units abroad for large retailers.
He successfully sold Message in 1990 and just five years later, Devoteam was born. The Bentzmann brothers saw a gap in the market during the dot-com boom in 1995. They capitalised on the development of the telecom industry and regulatory changes in France to create a business model targeting the telecommunications market, stimulated by new service providers.
The AI-driven company is now one of the most well known and respected consulting firms in Europe, focussing on business automation, cybersecurity, platform technologies, cloud service and currently a keen emphasis on data driven artificial intelligence solutions.
In 2023, Devoteam hit two milestones: €1 billion revenue and 10,000 staff and they weren’t stopping there. Just 12 months later, they acquired Ubertas Consulting to seize a foothold in the UK, and rebranded to Devoteam UK and with it, have now increased the payroll to 11,000 specialists who thrive in a high-talent environment: “Entrepreneurship, strong partnerships with global tech leaders and start-ups have been central to building lasting, innovative solutions that help our clients stay ahead,” said Stanislas at the time. “We aim to grow from $1 billion today to $2 billion within the next five years in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. We are fiercely ambitious. We want to manage the company with clear direction and discipline.”
Entrepreneurship has been the recurrent theme for Stanislas and beyond Devoteam, he has helped France’s wider business community by serving as President of CroissancePlus, promoting entrepreneurship and sustainable business, as well as being Chairman of the esteemed French Business School, KEDGE.
Expansion across the globe
Although they serve customers on a global scale, Devoteam’s main geo remains in the EMEA region. But is there potential scope for growth into the USA, Africa and Middle East regions?
“With over 11,000 tech architects in more than 25 countries across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Devoteam is committed to using technology to serve people. Of course, expansion is a crucial dimension for success in our cloud journey. Our next expansionary move might be to follow our customers, possibly to the US or India, but it’s too soon to determine this. Our relationship with the US is complex but in the future, when the time and the environment are more aligned, the US might be an extraordinary next step for us.
Stanislas is keen to address the current boom in the African market: “We started building there 20 years ago and we have been very successful in bringing the latest innovations to that region, and we believe we can continue to grow there in the years ahead. We are building a fantastic team in the region and although cloud integration is fairly new there, we need to develop our business capabilities in tandem with our customers’ needs. They have immense organisations, but they move cautiously, and we will aim to help them make the right decisions. We have demonstrated our strength in cybersecurity in Europe and global companies are aware of this.”
Travelling the globe making deals, mergers and acquisitions and securing partnerships such as the one with ServiceNow, the AI platform for business transformation, has become almost routine for Stanislas. The multi-year strategic partnership to accelerate CRM modernization for businesses across Europe and the Middle East sent a clear and positive message across the industry.
Foot firmly on the pedal
Yet, travel for pleasure is still on Stanislas bucket list and he makes the time for it. A family holiday to Botswana’s Okavango delta for a horse safari with his children is scheduled soon and every year he makes a honeymoon pilgrimage with his wife to Venice to enjoy simple Italian pasta washed down with a glass of good red wine. Indeed, the last year has been a special one as Stanislas and Godefroy celebrated the 30th anniversary of Devoteam at Chateau de Vaux le Vicomte near Paris in a gala evening with hundreds of close friends, family and colleagues who have all been part of the Devoteam journey from 1995 to the present day.
Stanislas’ next visit to London will no doubt include a stay in his favourite hotel, and he may just head over to Aston Martin’s Mayfair showroom a stone’s throw away. He’s always dreamt of driving the DB5 Aston Martin, made iconically famous by Ian Fleming’s James Bond,007. But make no mistake, although he may treat himself to the car as his 65th birthday present, he still has his foot firmly on the pedal and is not slowing down anytime soon.
