Commencement Day: Relive Cécile Béliot’s Speech (E97)

Every year, Commencement Day celebrates the awarding of diplomas for all ESSEC programmes in the presence of guest-of-honour alumni. Discover the speech made by Cécile Béliot (E97), CEO of Groupe Bel, to mark this year’s event. 

When I look out at you, I see great pride in your eyes, so many emotions on your faces and those of your loved ones. And you are right, because you have to know how to enjoy these moments that not only celebrate the culmination of your studies and your efforts, but also, for many of you, the turning point which will lead you into the working world, mark your definitive move into adulthood and the pleasures of independence and autonomy. 

My sincere thanks to ESSEC for inviting me to your graduation ceremony and allowing me to meet you; you who form and embody a new generation of leaders who will build, shape and determine tomorrow’s society and world. 

My name is Cécile Béliot, and 27 years ago, I was in your shoes. For 27 years I have been working passionately to build a more sustainable and inclusive food model. 

For 27 years, I have maintained my belief in the power of numbers and the transformative strength we have when we work as one, just like this evening.

For 27 years I have believed in goodwill and kindness, much more than in fear and constraint, as the drivers to rally and motivate the men and women who surround me.

Today, I am the CEO of Groupe Bel.

Bel might not ring any bells with you straight away, but you are familiar with all our brands, such as The Laughing Cow, Babybel, Pom’Potes or Kiri… Who doesn’t have a childhood memory linked to one of these brands inherent to French cultural heritage? And if that still means nothing to you, don’t worry, you just missed out on the best snacks of your childhood!

What you may not know is what lies behind these brands.

Bel is a family group with a fighting spirit, operating in 130 countries, employing 12,000 people worldwide, and with 150 years of history to its name, has lived through wars and other challenging times.

Bel embodies a French success of which there are too few. Bel gave birth to iconic brands and products by drawing on two forms of know-how from the Jura region.

Dairy and cheese expertise firstly, thanks to the region’s cattle and pasture lands.

Micromechanics secondly, because the soil of the Jura is also rich in iron, and the region neighbours Switzerland, the cradle of watchmaking. This expertise enabled us to miniaturise, portion, protect, preserve and package all our cheeses at high speed. This know-how has ensured that even today we are the only ones in the world who can produce mini Babybel for example.

But rest assured, I’m not here to talk to you about Bel and try to sell you cheese. I promise this ceremony won’t turn into a commercial for The Laughing Cow!

So, 27 years ago, I was in your place and I could say with pride and joy, ‘I am an ESSEC graduate’.

Perhaps it’s too soon for you to fully appreciate this, but you’ll see, there is a mindset which marks and distinguishes ESSEC. What characterises ESSEC for me is the freedom you were given during your studies to choose your courses, the majors which best correspond to you, and which you enjoy the most, thus making you responsible for your own path without forcing you into a mould and limiting you to imposed frameworks. 

This freedom is also embodied in the management of your schedule.

Some of you alternated 3 days at school with 2 in a company.

Others alternated Parisian terms with overseas exchanges.

Others chose a longer gap to get the most out of several months in a company or just to follow their desire to explore the world.

Whatever path you chose to follow, it was yours, and that’s what forges the free-thinking spirit that sets ESSEC apart. I ask you to continue fostering and cherishing this freedom throughout your life and your career.

This freedom has probably been the most useful tool in my career and personal life. My choices were guided by passion and love, by a sense of responsibility and usefulness, but certainly not by ambition, the desire to be number 1, or because it’s ‘what you’re supposed to do.’

When I was your age and at ESSEC, my thing, my passion in life, was human sciences; understanding people and societies from all possible angles through psychology, sociology, history, economy and literature. And this passion for the humanities naturally led me to mass retail marketing, because in the end, we’re really just studying everyday life. What could be more cultural, everyday and socially binding than food? 

‘Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you who you are.’ 

That’s how I found my vocation (what I was good at) and I combined that with my passion, my love for humanities.

I was also lucky enough to be able to apply this passion to the tasks assigned to me.

Because working for Danone, and then Bel, I soon realised that food is not a commodity like the others, food is so much more than that. Food is a human right.

Every person on Earth must have access to 3 balanced, sustainable meals for themselves and their children.

Nothing can stop those who are hungry and see their children go hungry. 

Nothing has a greater impact than food on the health of humans and the planet.

And yet the current food model is far from meeting the needs of humans while respecting our planet’s limits.

Let me just quote you some figures...

Someone dies of hunger every 4 seconds.

In 2023, more than 1 billion people suffered from famine and malnutrition. 

Yet there are also 800 million obese people, an exponential rise in diabetes epidemics, heart disease and all the chronic illnesses caused directly by bad diet and an excess of empty calories made of fat and sugar.

The current food model also produces one third of the planet’s carbon emissions, which is more than all forms of transport combined.

It uses more than 60% of the Earth’s water.

It is one of the main reasons for the massive decline in animal and plant biodiversity on our planet.

Lastly, and it’s important to understand this, the current food model is based on the weakening of soil (through intensive farming) and the impoverishment of those who feed us, i.e. farmers, livestock breeders and fruit-growers.

You can see what I’m getting at; the current global economic model is exhausted. All the forecasts show that it will be impossible to feed the 10 billion individuals on our planet in 2050 with this food chain.

I didn’t come here to depress you, and especially not this evening. I just wanted to tell you that while food, along with energy transition, is one of our society’s major challenges today, it is also a key solution to social inequality and climate change, and an invaluable tool to prevent illness, improve everyone’s well-being and regenerate life.

That’s why I fight for food change, for healthy, sustainable food for all.

This fight is what drives me, what gets me out of bed every morning, no matter the business issues, difficulties and crises to be overcome.

My motto is to prove that a player like Bel can rethink the model and open the way for a new form of capitalism.

A form of capitalism which respects our planet’s resources and limits, because it regenerates them.

A form of capitalism which respects its ecosystem and ensures upstream that farmers and breeders will receive a decent income to help them transform and shift their farming techniques towards agro-ecology.

Capitalism which protects every man, woman and child it feeds downstream, by providing healthier, affordable food for all.

Finally, capitalism which plans for the long-term and does not define value creation solely through profit, but places both financial performance and sustainability on an equal footing.

We are the first generation of leaders to have all the facts to hand, all the knowledge and data of major societal and environmental issues, as well as their planetary consequences in the short and medium term. The key and the priority at present are to decide what we are going to do with this knowledge and awareness. 

My response, my task as CEO of a major group such as Bel, is to prove that this group can open up a new way, and I hope that you young graduates will also continue to shape the world of the future, that you will keep fighting for a world where life and the individual lie at the heart of everything, and where goodwill is the cardinal value.

What I would like from each and every one of you, what I ask you to do, is to question yourself constantly, to find your very own place at the crossroads of 3 structural elements: your passion (what you love doing), your vocation (what you’re good at) and your mission (what will make you feel useful).

That place exists for each of us. It’s a very personal path you have to take. It’s sometimes a long path. But it is also the key to happiness! At least it has been for me.

To finish...

Over the years, I’ve come to realise that time is the most precious thing in the world. What’s valuable is time, not money. You can’t save or catch up on time; all it does is go by.

So, the challenge for all of us is to ask how each minute of our life can serve our personal purpose, our raison d’être...

I’ll leave you with this last question: if time is the most precious thing in life, what will you do to make every minute of your life precious?

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Pictures: © Nicolas Launay