Hailing from Paris, Vanessa Lyon has emerged over three decades as an expert in her field. For the past 20 years, she has been a dedicated team member of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where she has progressively taken on a series of leadership roles. Ms. Lyon joined the company in 2005 as a consultant before receiving promotions to global talent manager, project leader, principal, managing director and senior partner.
Currently, as the global leader in cyber and digital risk at BCG, Ms. Lyon sells and delivers consulting projects with specialized teams, identifying client challenges, defining project structures, overseeing project delivery, and leading a core team of several dozen professionals within a broader group of 400 employees. Although she experienced many career milestones with the organization, Ms. Lyon is particularly proud of her time leading its innovative Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) service line from 2017 to 2022. She spearheaded the conception of BOT, transforming how the company approached client enablement and value proposition. Her leadership led to the creation of a dedicated team and the development of a more comprehensive offering for clients. Moreover, Ms. Lyon was key to the successful execution of numerous major projects while leading the team. Her achievements were recognized by BCG’s chief executive officer at the time as groundbreaking.
Before joining BCG, Ms. Lyon built foundational experience at L’Oréal in France as a supply chain manager, later accepting additional responsibilities in the company’s information technology group. Her early professional experiences include contributing as a junior consultant with Arthur Andersen Business Consulting, a human resources analyst at LVMH and a finance intern at Saint-Gobain. She began her career in 1998 as a trader assistant on the equity derivatives team at Credit Lyonnais Trading.
Prior to pursuing her primary vocation, Ms. Lyon served in the military in France for three years. From 1995 to 1998, she was an artillery lieutenant in the Armée de terre (aka the French Army), where she focused on positioning systems for precision strikes. This experience instilled discipline and resilience that have underpinned Ms. Lyon’s subsequent accomplishments. In recognition of her service, she was awarded a Bronze National Defense Medal by France’s Ministry of Defense in 1996.
Ms. Lyon’s performance in the field has been aided by an extensive academic history, starting with a Master of Science in engineering with majors in data science and economics from the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. She obtained a second Master of Science in civil engineering from the same institution in 2001. Returning to school after immigrating to the United States, Ms. Lyon earned a third Master of Science in computer and information technology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2024. Further demonstrating her commitment to self-improvement, she has completed certification in programming fundamentals, writing, running and fixing code in C, and as a Scum master, Scrum product owner and SAFe 5 Agilist.
Beyond her career, Ms. Lyon is passionately committed to family life as a loving wife and mother to three teenagers. In her free time, she relaxes by playing golf and cooking. Known for her contributions as a civic-minded citizen, Ms. Lyon cares deeply about education and community engagement. Since 2025, she has provided guidance as a board member for the University of Pennsylvania’s online engineering program. Ms. Lyon also serves as a parent-teacher association liaison for Rye Country Day School and has supported initiatives aimed at enhancing science, technology and math, known as STEM, at her children’s school. She was previously a parent association delegate at Saint-Jean de Passy, a private Catholic school in Paris.
Contributing to and staying aware of developments affecting her field, Ms. Lyon is active with The Penn Club of New York and serves as a board member for The New York Academy of Sciences’ Board of Governors. Looking to the future, she has positioned herself for continued professional success by embracing cutting-edge advancements. Most notably, she is eager to play a part in improving global access to artificial intelligence (AI). Also, she hopes to help develop the understanding of AI technology and its implications in communities around the world. Ms. Lyon believes this can have an impact on people across all walks of life — from corporate professionals to students to members of underserved communities.