Frédérique Vidal appointed director of strategy and scientific impact at SKEMA Business School

SKEMA Business School has announced the appointment of Frédérique Vidal as director of Strategy and Scientific Impact, effective 1st June 2025, to support the school’s development. In this capacity, she joins the Executive Committee. This newly created position reflects SKEMA’s ambition to further assert its long-term vision in an international environment undergoing profound transformation.

A role at the heart of SKEMA’s strategic transformation

As Head of Strategy and Scientific Impact, Frédérique Vidal will contribute to shaping the school’s long-term vision in close collaboration with SKEMA’s General Management and its stakeholders (governance bodies, faculty, and partners). This mission involves a thorough analysis of SKEMA’s positioning within the global competitive landscape, the identification of key differentiating factors (internationalisation, hybridisation, AI, ecological and social transitions, etc.) as well as the rigorous monitoring of the implementation of the strategic plan in the short, medium, and long term.

Frédérique Vidal will support all departments across the school in aligning their action plans with the overall strategy.

Alongside this role, she will continue to contribute to SKEMA Publika, the school’s think tank, by leading Scientific Impact initiatives. In this context, she will work to reinforce SKEMA’s influence by combining academic expertise, intellectual output, and societal engagement to serve both public and private decision-makers. She will lead an impact strategy aimed at enhancing research, informing public debate, and asserting SKEMA’s role as a key player in major economic, social, and environmental transformations.

An engaged academic and institutional figure

Former President of the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis (2012–2017), now Université Côte d’Azur, and Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation from 2017 to 2022, Frédérique Vidal brings to SKEMA a unique dual expertise in both academia and public policy. A professor of molecular biology, she has served since 2022 as an adviser to the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), and in 2025, she was appointed President of the Abeille Assurances Foundation.

Following her ministerial duties, Frédérique Vidal had expressed her wish to join SKEMA Business School. However, the French High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP) had ruled that such a move would not be permissible within three years. The incompatibility ruling was based on the fact that during her tenure as Minister, the Ministry had issued regulatory and financial acts concerning private higher education institutions recognised as serving the public interest (EESPIG), including SKEMA.

As more than three years have now passed since she left government, her wish to join an institution she had previously worked with in the Côte d’Azur region as a university president can now become a reality.

Alice Guilhon, Dean and Executive President of SKEMA Business School

“In a constantly evolving environment, defining an agile strategy is more essential than ever. The appointment of Frédérique Vidal will enable us to take a significant step forward in steering our global development. Her unique experience, bridging academia and public institutions, is a major asset for SKEMA.”

Frédérique Vidal, Director of Strategy and Scientific Impact at SKEMA Business School

“I am delighted to fully join SKEMA at a time when the challenges facing higher education are immense: digital and environmental transitions, the globalisation of talent, and the hybridisation of knowledge. I will devote all my energy to serving an institution that has successfully combined academic excellence, societal impact, and international ambition.”