The Digital Skills of Swiss Business Leaders. What if Technology Were Opening a New Golden Age?

In this first Swiss episode of Visconti Talks, Hubert Reynier, founder of Visconti Partners, meets in Lausanne with Stéphane Grivat, founder and CEO of WNG Group, and Quentin Prévot, director of the e-commerce agency Antadis. Three business leaders come together to decode the silent revolution taking place in executive committees and boards of directors: the CEO's own embrace of digital and artificial intelligence challenges.

But who are Stéphane Grivat and Quentin Prévot?

Stéphane Grivat leads WNG Group from Lausanne — a digital ecosystem born 24 years ago from a web agency, which today brings together three agencies (WNG SA, Rizes, Antadis), several supported start-ups (LegalPass, EduTrust), and a start-up studio, Apolo, built jointly with QoQa. Twenty-four years navigating four to five industrial web revolutions, giving him a rare perspective on the cyclical nature of technological transformation.

Quentin Prévot, director of Antadis (integrated into WNG Group), embodies the digital native generation. Holder of an MBA from EPFL, where he defended a thesis on business application cases for AI, he works daily with Swiss brands on their e-commerce strategy and their adoption of generative AI.

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Digital is no longer a technical subject — it is a leadership subject

The shared observation is unequivocal: in most companies, digital remains delegated to the CIO, CTO, CMO, or a "Head of Digital" rarely championed by the CEO directly. Yet, as Stéphane Grivat reminds us, "the real challenge of digital, and even more so of AI, is human — it is culture. And when we talk about culture, we are talking about top management."

More striking still: boards are critically short of digital expertise. Whilst boards of directors are well stocked with financial, legal, and HR specialists, the transversal discipline that digital has become is almost entirely absent. This deficit is compounded by the high average age of board members and a board format widely considered ill-suited to the pace of technological change.

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Reimagining the board: more frequent, more agile, more engaging

The three leaders advocate for a thorough reform of the board of directors: moving away from the quarterly "old-fashioned SME" board towards a monthly, agile, incisive format — one focused no longer solely on financial oversight and risk management, but on its primary mission: coaching the CEO. Generational, cultural, and gender diversity becomes a strategic lever of the first order.

AI: a paradigm shift and a new "Wild West"

Artificial intelligence is upending several equations simultaneously:

• The way tools are built: a business leader can now opt for a bespoke "full AI" CRM rather than an off-the-shelf solution.
• The evolution of roles: "Developers who master AI will replace those who do not," observes Stéphane Grivat, citing the example of Philippe, CEO and lawyer at LegalPass, who "vibe-codes" in three days what previously took three weeks to a month and a half.
• The need for a framework: the "AI in a cage" strategy is becoming essential for sensitive subjects — high-performing AI but deployed in specific building blocks, never operating with full autonomy over critical documents.
• GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation), the new discipline succeeding SEO: positioning one's brand within ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini results is set to become the battleground of the next five years.
• AI as a "magnifying mirror" of technological shortcomings: technical debt, poor data quality — AI reveals everything and demands solid foundations.

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Reflection, decision, action: the modern leader's triptych

AI is drastically reducing the time available for reflection. As a consequence, pressure shifts to decision-making and execution. Hubert Reynier draws a strong conviction from this: "intellectual" leadership — the kind that spends hours modelling scenarios — is losing its currency in favour of instinct-driven, execution-focused leadership. Stéphane Grivat adds to this: there are moments when "the data gets it monumentally wrong," and it is precisely there that the true art of leadership lies — navigating between intuition and data.

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Agentic commerce, dynamic pricing, business models: what is already changing

Quentin Prévot illustrates the shift through agentic commerce: AI agents that place orders on behalf of the consumer, which disrupts the customer journey and restores the importance of unboxing as the first point of contact with the brand — whilst not extending to purchases with a strong emotional dimension. Hubert Reynier cites another concrete case: a French B2C cosmetics brand capable, through AI agents, of implementing dynamic pricing — a domain previously reserved for large corporations.

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The three pillars to pass on: passion, creativity, authenticity

For the future of his daughters as much as for the companies he leads, Stéphane Grivat holds to three fundamentals that withstand every technological wave:

• Passion, as a permanent driver of adaptation
• Creativity, uniquely human and beyond AI's reach
• A return to the authentic and to values — the celebrated start with why

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The coach's advice

Three convictions emerge from this exchange for any leader wishing to ride this wave rather than be swept away by it:

• Be curious and hands-on: one cannot embody a technology one merely observes from a distance.
• Foster a culture of error: innovation cannot thrive under a zero-defect mindset. It is far better to make many small mistakes quickly than to suffer a major failure later on.
• Industrialise AI governance: move beyond anarchic usage (each department doing its own thing) to build a framework that connects AI agents, data sources, and business rules.

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A golden age for entrepreneurship

The final word belongs to the guests: we are living through an era that Stéphane Grivat likens to the "Wild West" of the web in 1998–1999. A time of uncertainties — the real cost of tokens currently being subsidised, energy challenges, potential bubbles — but above all, a period where, as Quentin Prévot puts it, "there is no need to be afraid; you need to go for it now." For anyone with even a modicum of curiosity and a technological grounding, without needing to be a developer, this is a veritable golden age for entrepreneurship.

Discover in this episode how business leaders can reclaim ownership of digital and AI challenges, rethink their governance, and transform their organisations without fracturing them.