Didier Mattivi, founder of IP Trade, appointed Director of the Research, Innovation and Valorisation Administration at ULiège

The Board of Directors of the University of Liège (ULiège) appointed on 13 October Didier Mattivi as Director of the Research, Innovation and Valorisation Administration.

Didier Mattivi graduated in 1996 as a civil electrical and physicist engineer from ULiège. He also received a degree in management from ULB in 2000. He began his career in banking IT, at the Générale de Banque and at Nagelmackers. He then joined the sales department of CISCO in Luxembourg and Brussels. In 2005, he created the spin-off IP Trade, which has become the world's number 2 in trading room telephony, with a team of 60 people divided between the headquarters in Liège (Airport) and its subsidiaries in London, Paris and Hong Kong. In May 2017, he managed the acquisition of IP Trade by British Telecom (BT). He became head of sales, products and strategy for BT's trading room division. He left BT in 2019, and set up two companies, Wild Bishop (a video game design studio and incubator) and Barwal, the first company to manufacture Belgian oak barrels working with winemakers.

Didier Mattivi takes over from Michel Morant as head of the Enterprises-University Liaison Office team. He is also responsible for preparing the integration of the Liaison Office and Research Administration teams into the new ULiège Research, Innovation and Development Administration, a team of 80 people.

 

"My first motivation is societal: I want to bring added value to ULiège and Liège, as an extension of the work I also do within the GRE. I want to ensure the role of ULiège in the economic development of the region," explains Didier Mattivi, who will take up his new post by the end of October.

"The recruitment of Didier Mattivi is in line with the objective of a research of excellence, the impact of which we want to maximise. His managerial and entrepreneurial skills ideally prepare him to provide optimal support to our researchers in all the variety of their activities", explains Pierre Wolper, Rector.

"The appointment of Didier Mattivi as head of the Research, Innovation and Valorisation Administration is, given his multi-entrepreneurial profile, a great opportunity to strengthen the role of the University of Liège in regional economic development. Moreover, his recognised management qualities augur well for the implementation of the merger of the two previous administrations (Research Administration and Enterprises-University Liaison Office)," tells Fabrice Bureau, Vice-Rector for Research.