Christel Heydemann, European Director of Schneider Electric, on November 21, 2017 in Paris (AFP / ERIC PIERMONT)
New direction for Orange: the board of directors of the French telecom giant approved on Friday the choice of Christel Heydemann, 47, to succeed Stéphane Richard, convicted in November in the Tapie / Crédit Lyonnais case, as general manager .
A graduate of Polytechnique and the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, she becomes the second woman to run a CAC 40 company, along with the general manager of Engie, Catherine MacGregor. His taking office is scheduled for April 4, 2022, Orange said in a press release.
“In order to preserve the continuity of the company’s activities and to ensure the most efficient transition possible”, Stéphane Richard will continue “his mandate as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer until Christel Heydemann takes office”, specified the company.
At the head of the incumbent operator since 2011, Mr. Richard was found guilty in November of complicity in the embezzlement of public property in the case of the controversial arbitration rendered in 2008 between the businessman Bernard Tapie, since deceased, and Crédit Lyonnais.
At the time, he was chief of staff to the Minister of the Economy Christine Lagarde.
The scenario studied for several months to change the governance of Orange was also acted on Friday by the board of directors, namely the dissociation of the functions of president and general manager that Stéphane Richard combined.
Several groups in which the State is a shareholder have set up such governance, such as Renault, after the departure of Carlos Ghosn, or Engie, where Gérard Mestrallet went from CEO to non-executive chairman in 2016.
“Stéphane Richard will continue, upon the arrival of the new Chief Executive Officer, to perform the duties of non-executive chairman until the arrival of a new chairman and at the latest until May 19, 2022, the date of the general meeting. of Orange”, specified the group.
The race for this position has already started, with several candidates cited such as Pascal Cagni, former manager of Apple in Europe, or already declared such as Sébastien Crozier, president of CFE-CGC Orange, the group’s first union, and member of the board of directors. ‘administration.
Support from Bercy
In the running against other “interesting profiles”, Christel Heydemann was able to count on the decisive support of the government to get ahead of her competitors.
“Everyone sided with the position of the state”, the group’s largest shareholder with more than 20% of the capital, a source familiar with the matter told AFP on Monday.
The Ministry of the Economy had publicly expressed its support for the current European director of Schneider Electric at the beginning of January, indicating that it preferred the appointment of a woman among the three candidates in the running, with the current deputy director general of the group, Ramon Fernandez, and the sales manager of the American operator Verizon, Frank Boulben.
Minister Bruno Le Maire “wishes more women to access governance positions in large companies,” the ministry told AFP.
Only one woman currently heads a CAC 40 company in France, the managing director of Engie, Catherine MacGregor. But from July 1, Estelle Brachlianoff will also become Chief Executive Officer of Veolia.
The Orange operator stand at the World Mobile Fair in Barcelona, June 29, 2021 in Spain (AFP / Josep LAGO)
With a long experience in the telecom sector at Alcatel-Lucent, Christel Heydemann has been a member of the Orange Board of Directors since 2017.
“As a director of the group for nearly five years, I have been able to understand the technological challenges facing our company. I know that the challenges are major, but it is also a huge honor to contribute to the development of one of the major players in the telecoms industry,” she said after her appointment in a statement.
Present in 26 countries around the world, Orange, which employs more than 140,000 people worldwide, including more than 80,000 in France, achieved a turnover of 42.27 billion euros in 2020.
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