French national, Nicolas Payen has 15 years of experience in both engineering and marketing/commercial leadership roles. He hold an engineering degree in computer science and a master degree from EM Lyon business school. He started his career in the IT services industry in France where he developed application software for industrial customers. His IoT journey started in 2008 as the co-founder of a start-up named Efficient Home looking after the emerging market of the Smart Homes / Smart Grid for Schneider-Electric. In 2012 he released the connected residential energy management system named WISER. This connected solution was then deployed in the largest French Smart Grid pilot. In 2013, he moved to Hong-Kong to head the Smart Space Category for Asia Pacific and to lead the deployment of a channel partner program for the building technology’s system integrators of Schneider Electric. In March 2016, he became the Global Head of Internet of Things for MANN+HUMMEL (the largest filter company in the world) where he lead an Innovation Lab and a Global Competency Centre on smart devices, digital services, big data, and AR/VR. In April 2017, Nicolas created the Future Economy Studio. The Future Economy Studio mission is to create innovative concepts leveraging digital technologies to reinvent the way we do business. He is married and the father of two kids. He lived in France, Netherlands, Sweden, Hong-Kong, and he now resides in Singapore.