Advisory & training — private and public sectors

Secure the decision, equip the teams, transfer the skills.

S&D Consulting Group brings together two cultures the market usually keeps apart: compliance and risk management in financial services, and public procurement and public financial management. We turn a regulatory requirement or a policy ambition into arrangements your teams can run without us.

Book a 45-minute call, no commitment Explore our expertise

OrganisationGovernance, roles and decision paths

ProceduresOperating procedures that fit on two pages

ToolsReusable templates, scoring grids and dashboards

Good practiceTeams trained on their own cases

5areas of expertise, handled together

50training courses designed and delivered each year

70+sessions a year, in-house and open

2offices in France: Paris region and Landes

Five areas of expertise, one thread

A local authority renegotiating its debt is dealing with banking law. A bank outsourcing its IT is dealing with contractual cybersecurity. A public buyer electrifying its fleet is dealing with sustainability, finance and public procurement all at once. We handle these subjects together, because your projects do not separate them.

Banking law, compliance and banking relationships

Lead: Sandrine Villers, President — ESSEC graduate, admitted to the French bar, former tax lawyer, more than ten years working with financial institutions.

Digital resilience, the overhaul of the European anti-money-laundering framework, customer protection, sustainability risks, tax transparency: compliance teams are under constant pressure, and business lines take on obligations they do not always master. We translate these requirements into operating arrangements that hold.

For financial institutions

AML/CFT and financial sanctions: risk classification, KYC journeys, transaction monitoring, suspicious activity reports, asset freezes.
Customer protection: information and advice, lending, vulnerable customers, complaints, digital journeys.
Governance and internal control: three lines of defence, permanent control plan, reporting to senior management and the supervisory body.
Inspection readiness: mock review against the supervisor’s grid, inspection file, remediation plan.

For borrowers, private and public

Credit, security and guarantees: documentation, personal guarantees, first-demand guarantees, assignment of receivables, pledges.
Banking relationships: account agreements, pricing terms, competitive tendering between banks, covenants.
Local public sector financing: lender consultations, loan guarantees, legacy structured debt.
Tax transparency: tax governance, CRS and FATCA, DAC6 to DAC8, country-by-country reporting.

Compliance Flash Diagnostic
AML/CFT framework redesign
Mock review before an inspection
Banking relationship and financing review
Compliance retainer

Cybersecurity, digital procurement and artificial intelligence

Leads: Gilles Duvaquier for contract engineering and procurement, Sandrine Villers for governance and the regulatory framework.

The security of an information system is decided in the contract as much as in the technology: what the supplier commits to, what you can verify, and what happens the day you leave. We do not audit your systems; we secure the governance, the procurement and the contracts that frame them.

Buying digital and AI with confidence

Functional requirements and choice of procedure: innovation partnership, competitive dialogue, competitive procedure with negotiation.
Security, intellectual property and data protection clauses in IT contracts.
Award criteria and response frameworks that make bids genuinely comparable.
Reversibility, portability and exit plans: preventing dependence on a supplier and its subcontractors.

Governing digital risk

DORA: gap assessment, register of ICT providers, mandatory contractual clauses, incident reporting.
NIS 2: governance, cyber risk management, supply chain security.
EU AI Act: allocation of responsibilities between model provider, host and integrator.
Awareness sessions for executives, buyers and technical specifiers.

Reference — the French Senate. Support to the contracting authority on an innovation partnership to acquire a generative artificial intelligence producing the analytical reports of parliamentary proceedings: functional requirements, validation of the tender documents (administrative clauses, intellectual property, GDPR, contract management) and preparation of the bid evaluation.

Sustainability, CSR and the energy transition

Leads: Sandrine Villers for CSR and sustainable finance, Gilles Duvaquier for sustainable procurement.

Sustainability has moved beyond statements of intent. Since August 2026, French public contracts must include an environmental performance condition and an environmental award criterion; in financial services, claims must be substantiated and data verified. In both cases, what is needed is measurable objectives, evidence and an audit trail.

Structure and measure

Multi-year roadmap: quantified and dated objectives, milestones, programme governance.
Impact indicator framework and reporting template for funders.
Risk mapping: funding, schedule, public acceptance, supplier dependence.
Sustainable finance: integrating sustainability risk, reporting readiness, preventing greenwashing.

Buy sustainably

Bringing contract templates into line with the French Climate and Resilience Act.
Library of environmental clauses and criteria by purchasing category, with their evidence and scoring methods.
Whole-life and life-cycle costing in bid evaluation.
Performance-based global contracts, social clauses and inclusive procurement.

Fleet electrification and charging points
Energy retrofit of buildings
District heating networks
Solar power
Responsible procurement strategy

Public procurement and contract engineering

Lead: Gilles Duvaquier, Managing Director — twenty-seven years at the French Ministry of Defence, consultant and trainer since 2018.

Once a matter of procedural compliance, public procurement has become an instrument of public policy. We work on both sides of the table, never on the same tender.

For public buyers

Procurement strategy, spend mapping, threshold calculation, planning.
Market engagement, division into lots, choice of procedure and contract structure.
Tender documents, criteria and weighting, bid evaluation, preparation of negotiations.
Contract performance: price revision, amendments, penalties, contractor default.

For bidding companies

Opportunity monitoring, bid/no-bid decision, sizing the commercial effort.
Selection file and consortium bids.
Technical proposals built to mirror the award criteria.
Environmental evidence file, pricing strategy, learning from rejection debriefs.

Public-private partnership contracts
Competitive dialogue
Innovation partnerships
Performance-based global contracts
Works and design services
IT contracts

Public finance and management performance

Lead: Gilles Duvaquier — former chief administrative and financial officer, management controller and authorising officer.

Constrained revenue, rigid expenditure, heavy investment needs and growing expectations on the reliability of accounts: we give elected leaders and finance departments a clear view of their room for manoeuvre, and we secure the budgetary and accounting chain behind it.

Retrospective and forward-looking financial analysis, multi-year investment plan.
Budget cycle and execution of expenditure and revenue.
Public accounting and reliability of accounts.

Budgetary and accounting internal control.
Management control, cost accounting, cost of public services.
Financial execution of contracts: advances, interim payments, price revision, retention money.

From roadmap to contract award

Our standard support for local authorities engaged in their energy transition — electrifying mobility, phasing out heating oil and gas, district heating, solar power. Four strands that can be commissioned separately and follow the life of the programme. Each one leaves a deliverable your departments can run without us.

Structure

Roadmap and CSR governance of the programme

Strategic and operational framework document
Governance framework and risk map
Impact indicator dashboard
Financing strategy note: available schemes and their conditions

Lead: Sandrine Villers

Plan

Procurement strategy and planning

Consolidated map of the purchases the programme requires
Contract strategy by project family
Multi-year tender schedule
Whole-life cost analysis and budget sustainability

Lead: Gilles Duvaquier

Award

Tender support, contract by contract

Documented market engagement and definition of needs
Complete tender documents
Tools for assessing candidates and bids
Reasoned evaluation report and decision file

Lead: Gilles Duvaquier, with our partner network for works and engineering contracts

Transfer

Building your teams’ skills

In-house training on your own cases
Environmentally and socially responsible procurement
Performance-based global contracts
Two-hour briefing for elected members

Both partners

You remain in control of your decisions: approving documents, selecting contractors, signing contracts. The same framework applies to any programme that has to move from an ambition to a series of purchases that are affordable, fundable and legally sound.

Talk about your programme

Six ways of working with us

Clear formats that do not require lengthy scoping and can be combined. Every firm proposal is quoted after an initial conversation.

2 to 3 days

Flash Diagnostic

Establish the facts of a situation — compliance, finance, procurement — and leave with an action plan ranked by criticality, effort and deadline.

3 to 8 weeks

Structuring assignment

Build or redesign a complete framework: procedures, internal guide, template library. Team training included.

For the length of the operation

Operation support

End-to-end support: awarding a major contract, a bank consultation, a response to a strategic tender.

Monthly fee

Ongoing support

Operational questions answered within 48 working hours, document review, annotated regulatory watch, monthly follow-up call.

Annual commitment

Time-share

A regular presence in your compliance, finance or procurement function: scarce skills without creating a post.

From 2 hours to 3 days

Training

In-house modules built on your own cases, open sessions, virtual classrooms, executive seminars. Thirty-eight modules in the catalogue.

Our method

The same sequence in every area, scaled to the size of the assignment.

ScopingScope, deliverables, milestones and workload agreed before anything starts.
ListeningYour organisation as it actually works, not as it is described.
AnalysisFindings that are evidenced and ranked, not a list of reproaches.
FeedbackAn action plan discussed with management and approved by you.
DeliveryTools that can be used immediately, and teams trained to keep them alive.
Follow-upReviews at three and six months, so the plan does not stay in a drawer.

Transferring skills rather than creating dependence

We judge an assignment by the team’s ability to repeat it alone the following year. All our deliverables are handed over in an editable format.

Advice and training in the same movement

Our advisory work always includes time for teaching, and our training draws on your real cases rather than generic examples.

Practice before doctrine

A scoring grid gets filled in; a dashboard gets updated. Forty-page memos that nobody reads are not our trade.

Proportionality

A small town does not need the framework of a large city; a start-up payment institution does not need that of a systemic bank.

Our professional boundaries. We provide method, engineering, training and operational support. Our work does not include legal advice within the meaning of the French Act of 31 December 1971: when a matter calls for it, we say so and work alongside your qualified counsel. We never act for a buyer and a bidder on the same tender.

Track record

Contracting-authority support and contract engineering assignments led by Gilles Duvaquier since 2018.

Client	Assignment	Year
French Senate	Innovation partnership in generative artificial intelligence for the analytical reports of parliamentary proceedings: functional requirements, tender documents, preparation of the bid evaluation.	2024
DGAC (French civil aviation authority) — SYSAT G2 programme	Competitive dialogue: functional and value analysis, then preparation of negotiations and evaluation of initial bids by lot.	2023-2024
Centre Georges Pompidou	Review of the tender documents for a partnership contract awarded by competitive dialogue for the future storage facility in Massy, including the environmental programme.	2020
GAIA — Air Base 106	Support for the award of an innovation partnership: training, templates, consolidation of the contract documents.	2026
Eure département	Specification for a consultancy assignment to build the procurement strategy: benchmarking, market engagement, evaluation criteria.	2022
Civil aviation directorate in New Caledonia	Purchase or lease of vehicles, from procurement strategy to bid evaluation report; on-demand support in public procurement and financial execution.	2023-2026
Eau 47 water authority	Coaching staff in the technical and financial performance of contracts.	2024
CAMIEG	Requirements gathering, vendor engagement and specification for the purchase of an ERP system.	2021
Major energy company	Support in selecting a procurement information system, under a non-disclosure agreement.	2025

Organisations that have used our training

Directly or on behalf of training providers, including certified programmes accredited by the French State Procurement Directorate.

Directorate General for Civil Aviation
Ministry of the Armed Forces
Defence procurement agency (DGA)
State Procurement Directorate
Ministry of National Education
Banque de France
Bordeaux Métropole
Guadeloupe Region
Aveyron, Bouches-du-Rhône, Haute-Garonne and Ille-et-Vilaine départements
Caen University Hospital
Société du Grand Paris
Port of Marseille Fos
CROUS de Montpellier
13 Habitat
IRD Montpellier

Two partners, two cultures

S&D Consulting Group was founded and is run by two equal partners. This two-voice governance shapes what we offer: the culture of compliance and risk on one side, that of public management and procurement on the other.

s.villers@sd-consulting-group.com
+33 6 72 56 35 75
Saint-Maur-des-Fossés

President

Sandrine Villers

Risk, compliance and internal control — banking, insurance and financial services.

A graduate of ESSEC Business School with a master’s degree in business law, the French bar qualification (CAPA) and the AMF certification, Sandrine Villers began her career as a tax lawyer at Ernst & Young Société d’Avocats, in the financial services team, advising clients in the sector on complex legal, tax and regulatory matters.

She went on to lead compliance assignments for major institutions: interim management of a thirty-strong AML/CFT team at BoursoBank, a US regulatory control framework at BNP Paribas, and then six years at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation in Paris, leading the compliance strand of the Brexit transformation through to the preparation of the licence application to the French prudential supervisor (ACPR). In 2025 she served as interim deputy head of compliance at IMA Groupe.

At S&D she leads banking compliance, governance, CSR and sustainable finance, with a constant focus on turning regulatory requirements into operating practice. She works in French and English.

AML/CFT and sanctions
Internal control
Governance
Tax transparency
CSR and sustainable finance
Risk culture

g.duvaquier@sd-consulting-group.com
+33 6 62 23 75 38
Eugénie-les-Bains

Managing Director

Gilles Duvaquier

Public sector performance: procurement, finance, management and information systems.

A graduate in management control from IAE Montpellier, trained in public procurement at the French military school of administration and management and in construction works at the army engineering school, Gilles Duvaquier spent twenty-seven years at the French Ministry of Defence: accountant, management controller, regional procurement and finance auditor, chief administrative and financial officer, then in charge of contracting complex and innovative projects, budget planning and the roll-out of Chorus, the State’s financial information system. He headed the division responsible for settling and paying armament contracts at the defence procurement agency (DGA).

A consultant since 2018, he leads contracting-authority support and contract engineering assignments for public buyers — the French Senate, the civil aviation authority, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Eure département — and supports companies in their bids and the performance of their contracts.

Lead trainer on certified programmes accredited by the French State Procurement Directorate, including the inter-ministerial programme for expert IT buyers, he delivers some fifty courses a year: performance-based global contracts, responsible procurement, price revision, financial execution, internal control.

Contract engineering
Complex and innovative contracts
Digital and AI procurement
Sustainable procurement
Public finance
Budgetary internal control

Let’s talk about your project

We offer an initial 45-minute conversation, with no commitment, to understand your need and tell you frankly whether we are the right people for it.

Write to us

contact@sd-consulting-group.com

Sandrine Villers — +33 6 72 56 35 75
Gilles Duvaquier — +33 6 62 23 75 38

Head office — Paris region

80, avenue Mahieu
94100 Saint-Maur-des-Fossés
France

Branch office — Landes

51, route du Mouliot
40320 Eugénie-les-Bains
France

We work throughout France, on site and remotely.