Jean-David Malo studied in the Institut National Supérieur des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales (INSEEC Paris) and the University of California (Berkeley). He started his career as Head of internal control management in the Comité Professionnel de la Distribution de Carburants in France before joining ARMINES, a body managing contractual research and innovation for French engineering schools (Ecoles des MInes, Ecole Polytechnique, ENSTA, …), where he created, developed and managed the European Affairs Directorate.

He joined the European Commission in January 2001. In the Directorate General for Research and Innovation, he participated actively to a number of developments on the design of funding instruments, rules for participation, funding schemes, etc, both for FP6 and FP7. Assistant of Director Robert-Jan SMITS (2003−2006), Head of Sector in charge of the Risk Sharing Finance Facility (RSFF), Head of Unit in charge of regional aspects (2006−2010), he was managing from 2011 to 2013 a newly created unit in DG Research and Innovation, the main objective of which was to contribute to increase private finance and close market gaps in investing in research and innovation by expanding the scope and scale of existing EU innovative financial instruments (like the RSFF) and by developing new ones in the fields of debt (including guarantees) and equity financing, notably in the context of Horizon 2020 (“InnovFin”). The EU state aid framework, tax incentive schemes and philanthropic funding were also areas covered by the work of the unit, as well as Horizon 2020SMEs (i.e. EUROSTARS II, SME Instrument and the Fast Track to Innovation). Appointed as Director for Open Innovation and Open Science in February 2017, he designed/​launched and/​or expanded initiatives such as the European Innovation Council (EIC), the VentureEU Initiative, the RDI dimension under the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the European Open Science Cloud, the long-term sustainable investments for Research Infrastructures, the monitoring of the ERA Roadmaps, the transposition of Plan S principles, etc…

Since June 2019, as a follow-up of the European Council request to immediately set up the EIC, he has appointed as Director of the EIC Task Force. In charge of the EIC, the EU innovation ecosystems programme as well as R&I related financial instruments (InnovFin, EFSI, InvestEU), he is also a member of the EFSI Steering Committee, an alternate member of the EIF Board of Directors, as well as the High Level Representative of the Commission in EUREKA. Last but not least, he is the proud father of 2 boys.