Professional paths follow sometimes bumpy, winding, sometimes quiet paths. Reconversions, career breaks, revolution in the work environment… Serial portraits.
The press release announcing his appointment as head of Microsoft France at 1er July 2021 described a brilliant course, very tinged with international development, industry, energy, etc. After having led a career of twenty-eight years within the General Electric (GE) group until becoming the president of GE France, then having managed the international branch of the engineering company Segula Technologies, what could have made Corine de Bilbao want to be president of Microsoft France?
“I like to get out of my comfort zone “, She admits bluntly. Straightforward and smiling, she continues: “For a long time, I have had an atypical career. I am the only one in my family to have graduated and studied. My dad always told me I was the best. A teacher told me: “Do SciencesPo”, that’s what I did, in Bordeaux. “ She completed with an MBA in international purchasing management.
On the strength of her diplomas, she applied for her first position at GE “While they were looking for an engineer, but I wanted to work internationally … and get out of my comfort zone”. She joined the group, climbed the ranks and gradually directed various activities, health, energy, oil and gas, always with an international development dimension. At Segula Technologies, she strives to develop the international activity of several industrial sectors.
An impact on the economy of society
Microsoft is not offering it an industrial challenge or an international challenge. “In 2010, GE CEO Jeff Immelt said, ‘Ten years from now all businesses will be software.’ Since the start of the Covid pandemic, digital technology has helped us live and work. In thirty years of activity, I have seen a lot of transformations, but the digital transformation is what I have seen the strongest, it affects all sectors that are rethinking their business models to be more competitive, it creates new uses, it can make the economy more inclusive and more sustainable. All of this made me want to participate in this change ”, she explains.
The challenge at the head of Microsoft is to have an impact on the economy of the company, “To show that it’s not just a company that sells products, but that it can have an impact that is recognized by employees and the ecosystem”.
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