Straight talk on AI for rooms of CEOs.

About Philippe

Badass-in-Chief at CESSON.

Most people born on the French Riviera stay there. Philippe Cesson left, spent more than a decade inside Pinkerton, DirecTV, a startup called Adexa and Vistage, and in 2005 started a digital marketing agency in a California garage. He named it CESSON and has never managed to convince anyone that was a coincidence.

CESSON is over 20 years old now and run from Miami. Some of its clients have stayed more than ten years; the longest is at 17 and counting. Philippe has spent those years telling CEOs which shifts to act on and which to skip. He built Social Dog, a social network for San Diego dog owners, a year before Facebook had business pages. He walked clients away from Second Life, Google+ and Microsoft Tag. He put a client on ChatGPT ten weeks after it launched.

He started speaking in 2006 because his spry 91-year-old mentor told him to: “Philippe, you know this stuff, no one does, go and speak to CEOs about it.” He has since given 400+ talks, conferences and keynotes in 43 American states, 5 Canadian provinces, Mexico, the UK and the EU, to more than 6,000 CEOs and business leaders. Among them: 800 meeting professionals at Navy Pier in Chicago, the main stage of the hotel industry’s HX show at the Javits Center in New York, and the World Seed Congress in Budapest. Vistage put him in its 200 Club faster than most.

He speaks on three things: AI for digital growth, the generations who will buy from you next, and the next three years of AI. Nothing is sold from the stage, and everyone leaves with something written down.

Philippe holds an MBA from the University of Dallas, sat on its alumni board, and served as president of the San Diego French American Chamber of Commerce. He has three children, rides a Harley down the remote highways of the American Southwest, still spins on his own DJ decks, and wears silver rings on all ten fingers. He reads the Stoics and takes a Digital Detox every year, which he calls a vacation for his mind.

“What makes us human hasn’t changed much in 2,000 years, which is why getting AI right is humanity’s crucial responsibility, and every CEO’s ultimate challenge.”

2006

Builds Social Dog, a social network for San Diego dog owners, a year before Facebook Pages existed.

2006

Starts speaking to Vistage groups about social media.

2006–11

Tells clients to stay out of Second Life, Google+ and Microsoft Tag.

2015

Mobile-first.

2023

First AI work for clients, ten weeks after ChatGPT launched.

2026

AI search visibility: being named where buyers now ask.