Geoffrey Behaghel

Geoffrey Behaghel (/bəˈhɑːɡəl/; born November 13, 1982) is a French businessperson, entrepreneur, and podcast host. He is the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Ekkiden, a European consulting company created in 2019, and the podcast host for Innovation Leaders. 
==Early life and education==
Geoffrey Behaghel was born on November 13, 1982, in Paris, France, but he moved all around the country during his childhood. Regarding languages, Behaghel is fluent in French and English, and has limited working proficiency in German.
He attended Novancia Business School Paris, from 2001 to 2003, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in business administration & management. During his bachelor, he went to Kaufmännische Berufsfachschule für Wirtschaft (Wirtschaftsschule) in Heidenheim, Germany, for an exchange programme in 2002. 
From 2003 to 2006, he continued his studies in Néoma Business School in Reims, France, where he obtained a master’s degree in Sales & Marketing.
==Career==
Prior to Geoffrey Behaghel’s work at Ekkiden, he worked as business developer / account manager in the telecommunications sector at Beijaflore, Paris, from September 2006 to September 2007, then he moved to the Zurich branch to establish the company in the Swiss-german area. 
In the summer 2008, he joined Amaris Consulting, a one-year-old consulting company, where he first started as manager, and scaled up to Senior Manager, Director Manager and Operational Director in the next five years. In 2014, he became Managing Director of Switzerland and EMEA, and in 2017 he got upgraded to COO until 2018.
===Ekkiden===
After working for 15 years in the consulting industry, Geoffrey Behaghel created a human-centred consulting company called Ekkiden. This international consultancy group provides services to large companies to enable their digital, industrial, and sustainable transformation.
Ekkiden has an ecosystem of consultants, internal employees and freelancers that work in their field projects with an innovative and transformational approach.
This project was founded in Lyon, France, in June 2019 and has sustainably grown in its following years, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The T Swiss group, ELCA, joined the project in early 2019, partnering with Ekkiden.
The company’s name comes from the Japanese term “ekiden”, which represents a relay race marathon, symbolising the importance of teamwork inside the company. Ekkiden is present in Europe, and has 8 offices in four countries: France, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany. As of September 2023, the company has 200 employees of 22 different nationalities working in 15 countries.
In April 2023, Ekkiden obtained the EcoVadis silver certification that placed the company among the top 25% of sustainable companies. A Code of Ethics and a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee was created in 2023. Ekkiden became a member of the United Nations Global Compact in March 2023.
===Innovation Leaders===
Innovation Leaders is a podcast created in 2020 by Geoffrey Behaghel. This podcast is a platform to inspire professionals to embrace innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship in their careers and daily lives. Innovation Leaders focuses on business transformation in France and in Europe, and its main goals are to inspire, entertain, teach, and federate. Guests are field professionals that put forward their own stories, experiences, and knowledges in quality of tech entrepreneurs, CTOs, COOs, etc. As of September 2023, it counts with an audience of 30,000 listeners, 1200 subscribers in Spotify, and it is currently streamed in French. 
Innovation Leaders has hosted 10 of the French unicorns, start-up companies with a value of over $1 billion, such as Alan, Lydia, Payfit, Qonto. 
Geoffrey Behaghel has participated in other third-party podcasts, e.g. 'Dans la tête d’un(e) CEO' by Yaceline Sqally in April 2022, and in 'Leaders in Consulting' by Sammy Gebele in January 2023.
===Conference===
Geoffrey Behaghel hosted the French conference 'Accélérer la transition environnementale en créant la première agence mondiale de notation des sols' by Zero to one in May 2023 in Lyon, France.
==Personal life==
Geoffrey Behaghel is married and has four children. After living for 15 years in Geneva, Switzerland, he currently lives in Madrid, Spain. He likes photography and playing the drums in his free time.
Category:1982 births
Category:Businesspeople
Category:Entrepreneurs
Category:Podcasts
Category:People from Paris
Category:French people