Just before our appointment, Cathy Collart Geiger took a few minutes to consult her son’s results in the baccalaureate specialty tests. These parental constraints, which sometimes punctuate her working day, the CEO of Picard, 52, assume them. “We no longer want a boss disconnected from the worries of everyday life”considers the only woman at the head of a large food distribution company in France. “Everyone here knows I have a son. That I live in the North. » She is actually only in Paris for her working week. Her 17-year-old son and her husband remain in the North. It’s a way of life that she mentioned in the middle of the conversation, as if that weren’t the main point. “I’m married, I’m a mom, and I’m a CEO, and I’m happy in all three roles. In reality, it is possible, but with real renunciations, adjustments and, sometimes, role reversals between what is traditionally the responsibility of the man or the woman. »
The decision was made as a family. Everyone had their say. “I have never had any criticism from my son on the subject. From the moment we do it, it has to be without feeling guilty. I said to him: “I will give up at certain times, that does not mean that I give up on you, but that we will do things differently…” »
The first time you felt like a mother?
At my ultrasound, when I felt my child’s heart beating. I realized that I was going to become a mother, and it was from that moment that I really spoke to my son. He was in my stomach and I spoke to him as if he were a boy. My husband said to me: “But we’re not sure…” I told him “I’m sure it’s going to be a boy”. It seemed like a no-brainer to me.
Have you ever cried in front of your child?
Yes, when I became a mother, it’s as if a window on my emotions had opened. When I was young, I sometimes made fun of my mother, who cried out of sensitivity. Now I’m watching a movie, I’m crying. Not long ago I looked CryMacho, directed by Clint Eastwood, I shed my little tear… And there, on the sofa, I usually have my two men looking at me, saying to themselves that it will pass.
Worst thing you’ve said to your child?
” I do not have time. » Because I have a profession that is mine, what I repeat to him, sometimes, is: “Now is not the right time. » This is the thing that strikes me the most and makes me feel the most guilty.
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