Unplugged with iSolution: Google Cloud's Middle East Strategy & The Future of AI with Julien Rateau

What happens when a lifelong chess player runs platform strategy for one of the world’s biggest clouds? We sat down with Google Cloud EMEA platforms director Julien Rateau to unpack the surprising mix of competitive fire, humility, and approachable leadership that powers real results across the Middle East and beyond.

Julien maps his decade at Google, from France to the broader EMEA stage, and explains why hiring smarter, trusting local expertise, and staying close to the field beat top-down control. He shares how imposter syndrome can sharpen leaders, why comfort is a growth trap, and how daily chess practice informs knowledge, calculation, and long-term strategy. The conversation digs into responsible AI and agentic AI, translating the hype into practical value for teams that need clear decisions and measurable outcomes.

We go deep on Saudi Vision 2030 and what it takes to align cloud investments with a national transformation: a partner-first model that delivers 24x7 reliability, an API platform that meets customers in their preferred channels, and sustained investment in local talent that turns technology into impact. Whether you care about platform adoption, go-to-market execution, or building resilient teams, you’ll hear concrete insights you can apply right away.

If this conversation sparks new ideas, help us reach more curious minds: follow the show, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a quick review telling us your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Meet Julien Rateau

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Our guest today is one of the youngest and most inspiring leaders within Google Cloud, a professional whose journey embodies both ambition and leadership. As director of platforms for Google Cloud across Europe, Middle East, and Africa, he's at the heart of one of the most transformative technologies today. Let's welcome Julien Ratto.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Thank you so much, Kevin. It's a real pleasure for me for being with one of our main partners in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Thank you. So you're one of the youngest. That's a thing I want to emphasize on. Tell me, how did you reach this point? Tell us about your journey.

Career Path Across EMEA

SPEAKER_01 0:53

I joined Google roughly 10 years ago, Kevin. I joined to manage the French territory for IPG and the platform business. So after a couple of years, I moved to Southern Yemen, where I got the pleasure to cover the Middle East. So it was a very good discovery for me. And I traveled a lot in the region, going to the kingdom obviously, but as well to Dubai, to Bahrain, to Qatar, and it was amazing to see the economical rise of the Middle East in general, and how you were accelerating in the adoption of technology and now in the adoption of AI. After that, after a couple of years, I moved now to leading the EMIR region, and I'm extremely grateful to have this job and to continue to serve this team and this industry and looking forward for the next 10 years now.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Perfect. So when I spoke a bit with some of the surroundings of

Competitive Yet Approachable Leadership

SPEAKER_00 2:01

yourself, they said you're very competitive, yet you're very approachable. These are two like very different things to have. Can you tell me more about this?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yeah, definitely. I believe that since uh my youngest uh childhood I was always competitive. That's uh that's a characteristic, and uh but I believe that's a good characteristic in sales and to lead a sales team. Somehow our customers are making a choice, either the Google platform or another platform. And so the willingness to win is important in this uh in this job, and it's something that is important as well to share with the team, right? We need to be committed and we need to get this uh passion and this willingness to to win. So, yeah. I believe not only me, right? The entire team is is competitive, it's a very strong characteristic of the team, and at the same time, you know, we have to stay always very humble. It's an industry that is moving extremely rapidly. If we are not humble, we can go under complacency and then under failure very soon. So staying humble and you call it approachable for me is a very important element. It's always very important for me to be connected to the team. I believe that specifically for our leader with a couple of layers of management, it's extremely important to stay connected to the people that are on the field in order for them to take the best decisions for the company as well. So being approachable for me is indeed one of my values because I believe that we need to be connected to the people to take the better decision at the end.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

So do you go out with them?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yeah, I go out, yeah. I go out. Uh yeah, of course, yeah. I try to of course cover most of the professional topics, but as you discuss with human, right? You always uh cover the family and any kind of topics, right? With uh with everyone, and sometimes yeah, I got uh obviously customer and partner dinners, but as well uh sometimes when I'm out of home, you know, I'm yeah enjoying got some yeah, some good times with my team.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Uh so how does it build the loyalty within your team? How does it make them also more efficient?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Yeah, loyalty is a is a value for me which is very close to trust.

Trust, Loyalty, And Hiring Smarter

SPEAKER_01 4:34

At the end of the day, you know, I try to always hire the best on the market, and so and people potentially that are smarter than than than me, right? The goal is to always hire people that are smarter than you, and then you're in a safe spot, right? At the end of the day, when I am hiring people in the UK, in Sweden, in Spain, or in the Middle East, it's people who have a better knowledge of the local market that I do. They are there forever, they know our all the local etiquettes, the way to do business in those regions. And so I trust them 100% to take the best decisions with either customers and partners for us, and overall for our business. So this trust is built and fundamental, and it comes with loyalty. You know, it's important that we got people who are committed for the success of this division and overall for the success of Google Cloud. So loyalty is extremely important as well for me as a value.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

That says a lot about you, about the leader you are. So, how humble are you?

SPEAKER_01 5:43

I'm not sure I'm the right person to talk about my own humility, right? It's um but what I maybe what I can share with you, which is something that um that is close to my heart as well, is the first time you take leadership positions, you have never done that before. So there is kind of the imposter syndrome that is coming

Imposter Syndrome And Growth

SPEAKER_01 6:03

with that because you have never done the job. So you don't know either you're going to be good or not good on this job. So I believe with this imposter syndrome that I got and that I still have at some point, you know, comes humility. This is uh a critical aspect of it, and for me that's important point. But what I believe as well is I truly believe that the success is not coming from your comfort zone. So being in an uncomfortable situation on a professional standpoint is important to be successful. If you're too much in a comfort zone, if you know exactly what you're doing, somehow potentially complacency can come or laziness or kind of routine which can impact overall your performance.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

So you talked about laziness. Are you a patient person?

SPEAKER_01 6:57

I'm not sure there is a lot of people in the sales industry that are or in the

Chess As A Strategy Toolkit

SPEAKER_01 7:01

tech industry that are so patient. I think in IT or in digital overall plans that more than two years are not plans, you know, it's uh it's too long time. So impatient is part of our daily life, and no, I'm not so much of a patient person.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Okay, but I got to know you're passionate about chess, correct? That is very much correct. And they say you're a very good chess player. All that is subjective, Kevin. Correct. This strategic patience, does it help you within your line of work?

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah, indeed. I I play chess every day for the last uh 30 or 35 years, so I'm very much it's it's one of the biggest passions I have in life. Um it's always difficult, you know, to relate uh what you do on the board and you know how it impacts your professional uh experience. In chess, you have uh three main aspects of it. You have the knowledge, how do you know you know openings as an example? You know, it's memory test at some point. You have the how much you are able to calculate, you know, there is a situation you have to calculate. Yeah, and uh this is uh purely uh tactic. And as well, you have the strategic game, right? The long-term, you know, doing move now that is going to impact your position 20 moves from now. So indeed, I try to combine those three elements with the professional life at some point, specifically the strategic point, because as a leader, you know, we have to define the strategy for the year and for the years uh ahead, and uh and as well a vision that the team will follow. So it's maybe the the most important part of chess that I'm that I'm bringing with me every day.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Nice. That's a nice uh nice approach uh you gave here.

Google Cloud And Saudi Vision 2030

SPEAKER_00 8:46

So I'm gonna stay within the strategy and I'm gonna need to ask you about something very important. What's the strategy for Google Cloud within the Middle East, and especially aligning with Saudi Vision 2030?

SPEAKER_01 8:59

So, first and foremost, it's one of the region in the world where we are investing the most. So we are investing massively in the Middle East now, in direct as Google and Google Cloud, but as well indirectly with our dear partners such as iSolution. So that's number one. When we come to the vision of 2030, I think this vision comes with three pillars create a vibrant society, create a thriving economy, and create an ambitious nation. It comes as well with diversifying your economy. And uh part of it is investment in the entertainment with uh Neum or Cadilla. Uh there is investment in sports where you try to bring the greatest uh football players on the planet and as well in technology and in tech for citizens as well. I'm always very impressed with uh how much digital is the services for citizens, specifically in the country, in Middle East overall, but in the kingdom in particular. So what we try to do at Google Cloud is to provide the right technology and the right level of innovation with as well a strong focus on AI to help the kingdom to rise, to shine, and overall to lead.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

You spoke something very important here. You want the kingdom to shine and to lead, but you also said you leverage AI.

Responsible AI And Agentic AI

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Are you afraid of AI?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

I'm not afraid of AI. I I am using uh responsible AI absolutely every day in my own time in my in my as well in my personal life. And I think um each time there is new new wave coming, there is always two ways to see that. It's uh the first one is to yeah, kind of block and and and and be on the defensive position, or to embrace this new technology, this new wave, which is much more my approach there.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Do you think we might ever let's say lose control of it?

SPEAKER_01 11:18

I think on technologies overall, you know, you always have to be careful, but uh no, I don't think that we are going to lose the control, and I think that uh the potential of AI and more specifically of agentic AI open new possibilities for the world overall and and for the economy.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

So

APIs Explained Simply

SPEAKER_00 11:42

I need you like since you're very approachable, in simple terms, tell me what's API for someone who doesn't understand technology.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

It's a platform that allows our customers to open the services to the external world. And it means a lot. It can be to monetize services, to find new revenue stream for your company. It's as well the platform that is going to host all the digital services and the website and the applications of our customers. And as well, it will help our customers to reach the customer journey where they are. If you're a bank, as an example, you can potentially allow a transfer on WhatsApp, you know, through an API. So they don't need to access any of your channel to get the job done, but you can do it through the customer journey, which we believe is much more powerful for our customers overall.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

So the channel team, the Google Cloud channel team, and the partner reach that uh Google Cloud has within the partners, how how is it well like is it well established in the Middle East? Do you think you can provide support

Partner-First Model In The Middle East

SPEAKER_00 12:54

24-7 for all the all the regions?

SPEAKER_01 12:58

I think it's uh the Middle East and the partner ecosystem in the Middle East specifically is one of the most advanced models that we have in the world. And it's it maybe it can come as a surprise for you, but not for me. We are trying to duplicate this model all over the world because we are so much involved with our partner ecosystem in the Middle East where we are almost not taking any single customers in direct, but everything is indirect. So partners are critical for the long-term success of our customers. You can use the technology you want, and we do believe that we have one of the best platforms on the market. But if you don't implement it well, you won't extract the value out of the technology. So this is extremely important for us to work with reliable partners, and indeed, we have the capability to build, to run, and to maintain, as you say, 24 by 7, any customers in the kingdom and in the Middle East in general and as well in

Investing In Local Talent

SPEAKER_01 14:04

the rest of the world.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Are you investing in human talent within the Middle East and local talent specifically?

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Yeah, we do. We do, especially in our team, as I told you at the beginning of the interview and the podcast, that um we are investing massively in the Middle East overall at Google and Google Cloud. It's as well the case of my organization. We multiply the team by five over the last uh couple of years, over the last three years. So we do continue to invest in the kingdom in particular. We didn't get a single resource at the beginning of 2023, and now we have uh three people on the ground, so and we will continue hopefully to invest in the coming future. So we are investing in human talents and uh selling technology, it's an it's an art where human talents are so critical for our success.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

True. So tell me something no one knows about you. No one from the public knows about you that you may know, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

I think. Um, yeah. The the the fact on chess, I think uh you were I was a bit um shocked shocked and surprised by uh how you know me. It's not something I'm sharing

Personal Reveal And Career Advice

SPEAKER_01 15:18

publicly, obviously. So you have done your own research. So I think uh being a chess player and uh avid chess player, I should say, you know, playing absolutely every day is uh one of my characteristics. Uh it's um yeah, this is something uh yeah that the public is not uh fully aware of, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Okay. If you want to give, let's say, one piece of advice to young professionals that are starting their career now, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Network is critical. This is number one, and specifically, I believe, in the Middle East region overall. So start to cultivate your network from day one of your professional life. This is number one. Point number two is all about being bold and uh just remember that success is not coming from your comfort zone. So be bold and try stuff, you will be successful.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Perfect. Did you like this podcast?

SPEAKER_01 16:17

I love this podcast, Kevin. Thank you so much. It's always refreshing. Thanks for for the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Thank you for having us actually at Google Offices in the middle of Paris. That's an honor for us also to be here.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Yeah, it's a real pleasure, and especially uh in the vibrant

Closing From Paris

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Paris right now with the fashion week. So we are more than welcome to welcome you there in Google today and for our as well our API origin. So thank you very much, Kevin. Thank you very much, iSolution. It was a pleasure for me being with all of you today. Thank you for this discussion. Amazing. Yalla! Yalla