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François A. Dumas
François A. Dumas has broad experience gained in 20+ years in IT, covering all areas from system design, data center operations to IT strategy and high level management.
He is a seasoned international executive with a special talent for communicating on all levels, in many languages and many cultures. He has worked in several industries including publishing, manufacturing, business services, marketing research and computer games.
Mr. Dumas left ACNielsen in 2005 and has started his own company in July 2005. He decided to go back to his initial love for writing and flight simulators, and founded Silver Cloud Publishing. His activities now include running the very successful FSAddon.com Publishing (a gaming software company), writing in various international magazines, running the simFlight Network (an international flight simulator news site) and tending various internet shops.
Mr. Dumas is also a speaker on many flightsim events.
In addition he also takes on (short term) assignments as Executive Consultant, specializing on 'international teams', 'on-line communities', 'virtual organizations' and 'internet usage'.
Before starting his own company, Mr. Dumas has worked 20 years for the ACNielsen Corporation (now a VNU Company) in a number of international IT management functions. From 1995 till 2005 he was the Director of IT Infrastructure and Planning for Europe and was responsible for a budget of over $60 million dollars and a staff of over 130 people. His field of responsibility encompassed 50 sites in some 39 countries, including 12 mainframe sites (consolidated), and over 7000 PC's and 450 servers in a mixed network environment.
A major accomplishment in that latter role was to 'sell' a reorganization of all local IT departments in over 20 countries into a globally led Data Services Group. He successfully folded all non-mainframe activities into the group and set out and implemented standards for hardware, software and networks.
Before joining ACNielsen, Mr. Dumas worked in the newspaper industry for 8 years, followed by a few years with an industrial software house as system designer and project manager.
For many years Mr. Dumas has been a very active member of a number of on-line communities, both professionally as well as in the hobby area, the latter resulting in the start of his new career.
He speaks 5 languages fluently, and a few not-so fluently, loves riding his BMW motorcycle, occasionally flying the club's airplane in the French Alps when not hiking through them, and is also an avid photographer.
In spite of his French name, he was born in The Netherlands, in 1952, and still lives there with his wife Nina. They are looking to move to a milder climate though.
Mr. Dumas holds a BA in Printing Industry Management from the former Amsterdam Graphical School.
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