About Joel Barbier

Joel Barbier is a director who manages the Global Enterprise Economics Practice of the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG). He has led financial/economic consulting engagements with top CXOs of several Fortune 500 companies/government agencies, including Ford, Unilever, Walmart, AT&T, General Electric, and the French government. He helps formulate business and technology strategy, assesses the economic and financial impact of technology investments, and drives Cisco’s technology thought leadership. 

Barbier began his career as a mergers and acquisitions analyst for Gaz de France in Berlin during the East German industry privatization. He worked with the acquisitions team on valuation, due diligence, and financial negotiations for 15 potential acquisitions, five of which were completed for a total investment of US$1.5 billion. 

Later Barbier became financial controller at L’Oréal‘s Gemey Maybelline subsidiary. He partnered with the CEO and CFO to structure pricing and deals, drive effectiveness of marketing budgets, and improve operations profitability by $50 million. 

Prior to his current role, Barbier was a program manager in sales, channel operations, and finance at Cisco. He helped globalize and enhance processes and governance for a 15,000-member salesforce around deal management, pricing, and discounting—improving Cisco and it partners’ working capital by more than $130 million, and reducing the sales decision cycle time by 70 percent over five years. 

Barbier holds an M.B.A. in finance from the Community of European Management School, delivered by the University of Cologne, Germany; and an M.S. from the HEC Graduate School of Management, Paris.