Jean-Paul Lepeytre is a graduate of École Supérieure d'Optique.
He joined the Thomson-CSF Group in 1972, working in the field of optronics. In 1985, he was appointed Director of the French Laser-Guided Armament programme. He then became Director of Electronic Missiles (1987 to 1989) before joining Sextant as Director of the Visualisation and Man-Machine Interface division. He went on to become Director of the Civil Avionics division of Sextant (1993) and Director of Sextant (1996). He headed Thales Information Systems (1999-2004), before being appointed SVP, Services, in 2004 and SVP, Deputy Director, Security Solutions & Services in 2007.
He has held his current position since 2008.