Interview with Andrea Falleni of Capgemini
From steering a 20-person startup to leading Capgemini’s vast Southern European region, Andrea Falleni knows what it takes to navigate change and seize opportunity. In this candid interview, he shares his insights on the next AI revolution, the rise of intelligent supply chains, and how Capgemini is helping businesses in Europe reimagine their future—one AI agent at a time.
Reflecting on your career journey, what defining moments or achievements have shaped your leadership approach and vision for Capgemini?
Before joining the company in 2012, I founded the Italian IT services provider AIVE BST Group. With only 20 employees, we rapidly made our mark in the banking sector and grew to over 100 people, which attracted Capgemini’s attention and ultimately led to our acquisition. That transition was a pivotal career step for me and underscored the importance of agility and entrepreneurial thinking in leadership.
From here, I led the same business unit that had acquired my firm, with my appointment as CEO of Capgemini Italy. Collaborating with a high-caliber leadership team, we achieved numerous benchmarks that solidified Capgemini’s presence in Italy and taught me the value of strategic foresight, teamwork, and innovation.
Most recently, in 2023, I was named CEO of the Southern European region, including Central Europe countries, and joined the Group’s Executive board. This role has given me the opportunity to further cultivate a culture of collaboration, performance, and continuous innovation across the region.
Each of these milestones has informed my leadership style. They are a testimony to the power of being a performance driver, the importance of nurturing talent, and the necessity of staying agile in a rapidly evolving market. These principles guide my vision for Capgemini: to constantly innovate, to invest in our people, and to deliver transformative solutions for our clients, creating value.
What personal values or guiding principles have been most instrumental in your rise to CEO of the Southern Europe Strategic Business Unit at Capgemini?
I strongly believe in continuous learning – embracing new ideas, seeking out diverse perspectives, and staying curious about emerging technologies. Working alongside talented individuals across varied disciplines fosters innovation and helps us deliver transformative outcomes for our clients. It is also something which is embedded into Capgemini’s culture, where we actively encourage skill development and knowledge sharing.
I also feel it’s important to maintain an entrepreneurial mindset. Being open to experimentation and not afraid to challenge the status quo has driven my approach to leadership. I’ve found Capgemini to be an exceptional environment in this regard, as it has given me the chance to be at the forefront of change, whilst working alongside a dynamic and supportive team.
As Capgemini looks ahead to the rest of 2025, what key innovations and developments can clients and partners expect to see, particularly in alignment with your dual focus on digitalization and sustainability?
Over the next year, we see AI and Gen AI having a major impact on companies’ priorities, as well as on many adjacent technology domains, including robotics, supply chains, and tomorrow’s energy mix. It’s encouraging to see that organizations are already preparing to incorporate new technologies such as AI into their sustainability objectives while they are upgrading operations.
One key trend we can expect to see is a new generation of agile, greener, and AI-assisted supply chains. As Capgemini Research Institute data revealed 37 per cent of top executives see these new-generation supply chains as the top tech trend in industry and engineering in 2025.
Technologies like digital twins and AI are key to adding agility to manufacturing processes and self-fix supply chains in dynamic market conditions, helping organizations anticipate disruptions and make data-driven decisions.
In a challenging global landscape, and unpredictable macro-environment, this is more than a trend. The drive for security and stability is causing European organizations to prioritize the diversification of their supply chains, despite rising costs. Technologies like digital twins and AI are key to adding agility to manufacturing processes and self-fix supply chains in dynamic market conditions, helping organizations anticipate disruptions and make data-driven decisions. They are also supporting sustainable manufacturing practices, so technologies like AI and data-driven strategies are crucial for greener, more efficient production. This shift is about upgrading operations to meet the challenges of a resilient, low-carbon future, creating sustainable value.
Another key trend we’re seeing is the dual transition towards a more sustainable and digital world. Capgemini research shows that nearly eight in 10 organizations (77 per cent) agree that this shift is underway. In fact, the eco-digital economy is expected to double in size over the next five years and, by 2028, it will be worth around $33 trillion. This transition will be driven by digital technologies playing a role in emissions reduction and the vast untapped potential of other new technologies such as AI and agentic AI.
How is Capgemini currently leveraging AI agents to drive innovation, enhance customer experiences, and improve operational efficiencies for your European clients?
We help them understand, through use cases, how technology can optimize the efficiency of their existing infrastructures and increase productivity, as well as how to best integrate them into their operations and facilities. We are helping them explore the potential of AI agents to digitize and redefine their businesses from end to end, enabling them to transform their value chains, from smart products and services, intelligent supply chains and manufacturing to enhanced customer experiences.
What specific benefits do you believe AI agents bring to Capgemini’s services within Europe, and how are these AI-driven solutions contributing to revenue growth across the region?
The emergence of AI agents has the potential to enhance automation and productivity across sectors, business processes, and along the entire value chain. These AI agents have evolved from supportive tools to autonomous entities capable of executing tasks independently – interpreting, adapting and understanding – in dynamic environments. They offer organizations immersive versatility and potential, including smoother automatic and enhanced productivity.
Although the technology is still in its early stages, recent Capgemini research shows that organizations are eager to adopt AI agents, with 82 per cent intending to integrate them within 1–3 years. The pharmaceutical and healthcare sector is at the forefront of AI agent adoption (23 per cent) but, over the next year, a significant portion of high-tech (77 per cent) and retail (66 per cent) organizations are poised to embrace AI agents, indicating acceptance across diverse fields. About three-quarters intend to deploy the technology for tasks such as generating and iteratively improving code.
We’re already seeing these AI-driven solutions contribute to revenue growth across the region. One example is a Swedish payments company that uses an AI assistant to handle tasks equivalent to the workload of nearly 700 employees. This AI assistant addresses service requests, manages refunds, and handles returns in various languages. It has significantly enhanced efficiency and precision in resolving tickets, cutting repeat inquiries by 25 per cent. On average, it completes tasks in one-fifth of the time that it took to do them manually, freeing up employees to focus on other revenue-driving activities.
Similarly, in cybersecurity industries, AI agents are enabling organizations to automate contextual alert triaging, incident investigation, and response. This auto-prioritization allows security staff to focus on urgent matters, reducing stress levels and mitigating burnout.
With advancements in AI on the horizon, what future developments in AI agents are you most excited about, and how do you see these impacting Capgemini’s offerings for European clients in the coming years?
While currently only a small number of organizations use AI agents effectively, we envisage widespread adoption across a range of industries. For example, the pharma and healthcare industry could use AI agents in the future to coordinate healthcare services, from appointment scheduling and patient care tasks, to monitoring vital signs and administering medication, reducing errors and enhancing overall service delivery.
In terms of AI more broadly, this could be used to reinvent drug discovery, clinical trials, and personalized medicine. Capgemini optimizes the performance of processes across the entire value chain, offering an end-to-end approach that uses the right technology for the right task. These advancements will free up time to allow our teams to continue to innovate and discover new ways that Gen AI can create a positive impact both within the pharma industry and beyond.
How does Capgemini plan to maintain a competitive edge in the European market while driving both innovation and growth in a rapidly evolving business landscape?
The importance of having an end-to-end approach in an ever-evolving business landscape cannot be underestimated. For example, many organizations understand the new and emerging digital technologies, but they don’t understand how to build a boat or a plane, or how to design, develop, and deliver a “smart” factory. Capgemini can do it all. We’re helping organizations to digitize and redefine their businesses from end to end, leveraging strengths from strategy and design to engineering, all fueled by our market-leading capabilities in AI, cloud, and data, combined with our deep industry expertise and partner ecosystem.
