Xavier Niel

Xavier Niel is Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer of Iliad, the French telecommunications group he founded. Iliad operates the Free brand across France, Italy, and Poland. Through his personal holding NJJ, Niel also controls eir (Ireland), Salt Mobile (Switzerland), and Monaco Telecom, and holds a stake in Millicom.

Niel launched Free in 1999, introducing low-cost broadband and later mobile offers that reshaped the French telecom market. Iliad listed on the Paris stock exchange in 2004.

Beyond Iliad, Niel has built one of Europe's most active startup ecosystems. In 2010, he co-founded Kima Ventures, one of the world's most prolific seed investors. In 2013, he founded 42, a tuition-free, peer-to-peer coding school now operating across multiple countries. In 2017, he opened Station F in Paris, the world's largest startup campus, hosting over 1,000 startups alongside venture capital firms and global tech partners. In 2023, he co-founded Kyutai, a Paris-based non-profit open-source AI research lab, alongside Rodolphe Saadé and Eric Schmidt.

Niel sits on the boards of KKR (since 2018) and ByteDance (since 2024), and on the Supervisory Board of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield. He is co-owner of Groupe Le Monde.