In 2007, Valentine Poylo joined the infrastructure legal department of SNCF Réseau, in charge of all research, innovation and development projects, industrial partnerships and trademark portfolio of France’s national state owned railway company. She recently extended the activity of the department to all data subjects, data governance and personal data privacy.

At the frontier of new developments in the law, Poylo was designated as data protection officer for GDPR issues, stating: ‘I took part in a unique entry point for all intellectual property subjects: innovation, trademarks, data, and software that allowed to diffuse an intellectual property culture in the company’. A large part of her role entails fully managing and taking responsibility for the intellectual property affairs of the group, as well as the industrial partnerships department, a ‘major and global mission’ that involves working with high level directors across the company. Prior to her current role, Poylo started her career at the Defence Ministry, working for the national navy mission in charge of the change of status of the national shipyard, responsible for the repartition of the intellectual property assets.

‘Then, once the change of status was realised, I worked for the general delegation for Armament to pass all the public contracts of maintenance with the new company’ adds Poylo. In her current role, she participated in an instrumental transaction with the public contact operators for the new high speed lines construction. On the challenges she overcame whilst working on this task she says: ‘The issues were to recognise and value the know-how contained in the technical documentation communicated to the operators. The instruction of the claim was very long and mobilised lots of legal experts’.