Gender Equality, Mental Health, Nationality Rights and More... ESSEC in the Media

Management, economy, entrepreneurship, tech, geopolitics and commitment... In France and abroad, ESSEC members are making headlines in all fields! Press Review

Leadership

On BSmart, Adrien Ledoux (E06), CEO and co-founder of JobTeaser, the French unicorn devoted to recruiting and guiding young talents, looks back at the early days of his company, launched in the midst of an economic crisis, and shares his management style. ‘Humility is important. To create a close-knit team, you must avoid excessive ego and be able to let go of an excellent profile who doesn’t know how to play as a team.
Watch the programme (in French)

Stratégies devoted a feature to Samuel Loiseau (E98), Managing Director of Operations at UGC. ‘He began by checking tickets at French Ligue 1 football matches in Angers. He then worked for SFR, PMU and Fnac Darty. He is currently leading the digital transformation of his network of 50 cinemas, and has notably doubled the share of electronic entries to reach 80% of total ticket sales.’ 
Read an extract (in French)

Commitment

In Challenges, Fanny Picard (E92), founding CEO of the impact investment leader Alter Equity, spoke of her commitment to gender equality. ‘One third of the companies under our management have at least one woman among their founding members, compared to the 12.5% observed by the Next 40/120 listing. We now ask our beneficiary companies to include at least 30% women on their executive board and to appoint a head of diversity. And although it wasn’t an initial goal, our staff is now 79% female.’ 
Read the article (in French)

In La Tribune, Albin Serviant (E92) warned: ‘While 85% of French people claim to accept homosexuality, there are thousands of crimes and attacks against LGBT people, and that figure has been growing by 17% a year since 2016, as if social acceptance has lowered vigilance towards an increasingly assumed hostility.’ That is why he co-founded The Pigment Project, a new think & do tank acting for an environment which is safe and conducive to the well-being of all.
Read the article (in French)
See also our interview (in French)

On Radio Classique, Stéphane Cicolella (E96), Managing Director of Elmy, explained how his company manages to offer 100% renewable and 100% French energy at rates which are as competitive, if not more so, than nuclear and fossil energy operators. ‘We buy electrons from small local producers, which contributes to their inclusion in the electricity system.’ 
Listen to the programme (in French)

Les Échos praised the initiative of Jérôme Adam (E00), who recently launched the charity fund Tout pour être heureux devoted to the mental health of young people and those around them. ‘We fund actions aimed at rolling out psychosocial skills which, according to Santé Publique France, [French Public Health Agency], would reduce alcohol consumption by 30% and tobacco by 20%, violent and aggressive behaviour by 25% and symptoms of depression by 20%.’
Read an extract (in French)

France Bleu Occitanie interviewed Nathalie Antoine (E86) on the release of her guide Rebondir après un burn-out [Bouncing Back from Burnout] published by Baudelaire. ‘When I suffered a burnout, I had no support in parallel to my medical treatment to help me get back on my feet. I tried lots of methods, from mindfulness meditation to qi gong and positive psychology...Now I want to help my readers in the same situation to save time.’
Listen to the programme (in French)

Expertise

On France Inter, historian Patrick Weil (E80) debunked the misconceptions around nationality rights. ‘Unlike the USA, France does not have birthright nationality. If you are born in the USA, to two foreign parents, you are automatically American. This is not at all the case in France, where birthright is always conditional.’ In fact, French nationality can only be obtained from the age of 13, with parents’ consent, provided the candidate can prove five years of schooling in France. ‘This is a republican right because it takes school into account. It’s a notion which is thus designed intelligently, based on education and socialisation.’
Listen to the programme (in French)

In Les Échos, Bernard Spitz (E82), CEO of BS Consulting, shared his view of Donald Trump’s first geopolitical decisions. ‘The country which created the anti-trust laws is monopolising new technologies; the father of the League of Nations is breaking away from multilateralism, and the Western guarantor of peace is turning its back on its allies...that’s what we call a Blitzkrieg. The key for Europe will be our ability to do the same and force the USA to compromise.’
Read an extract (in French, starting at 15'52'')

In the Harvard Business Review, Batoul Hassoun (E07), CEO of The Salmon Consulting, raised the question: in an increasingly insecure context of successive crises and declining public services, could the corporate world become the most protective environment for citizens? ‘In the future, a permanent contract could be more valuable than a passport! But if we take this path, how will we avoid returning to the paternalism of the 19th century? How do we prevent excess invasion of privacy? And what duties will be required of employees in exchange for the benefits offered? 
Read the article (in French)

On Arte, political science expert Benjamin Brice (E07) analysed the European competitiveness compass. ‘If we increase our external dependence to become more competitive (by banking on Russian or American gas), we call our environmental efforts into question (whereas we aim to be a model in that field), or we widen the social divide (which makes any collective effort impossible). It’s clear that what we gain on one hand will be largely lost on the other. For China and the USA, political decisions are driven not by competitiveness, but by national interests.’
Watch the programme (in French)

On Radio Classique, Olivier Sichel (E89), interim CEO of the Caisse des Dépôts group, sought to reassure listeners on the record-breaking level of assets under management of the Livret A savings account. ‘Not only does this product guarantee the sums deposited and their liquidity, it also puts them to work. It constitutes the leading funder of social and intermediate housing and also serves to finance general interest projects led by regional authorities, such as the renovation of your local school, the water network, or the development of green mobility. As for the lowered rates, they enable very substantial savings on interest rates for social landlords, approximately €800M for a full year, which represents around 25,000 new housing units, in addition to maintaining yield at a higher level than inflation.’
Listen to the programme (in French)

In La Tribune, Louis Raynaud de Lage (E14), Senior Manager at the Bartle consultancy, asserted: ‘The CRSD is not a burden; it supports companies’ resilience!’ More specifically: ‘Researchers have been exploring the links between ESG criteria and economic performance for more than twenty years. Results show that in almost 90% of cases, ESG criteria do not penalise performance, and in the majority of situations they actually improve it.’ 
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In Les Echos, economist Laurence Daziano (EXEC MBA 04) analysed the outcome of the Paris AI Action Summit. ‘The challenge for European businesses is to train and develop new skills and thus avail of a more learned and adaptable workforce. One of the EU’s major handicaps is specifically to retain talents who are attracted by higher salaries and better career opportunities, in the USA particularly. We are entering into a period of war for talent.’ 
Read an extract (in French)

On France Inter, Lou Welgryn (E18), Secretary General of Data for Good and co-founder of the ESSEC Alumni Transition Club, criticised the hidden face of artificial intelligence. ‘Even before considering the bias with which we train an algorithm, it must be remembered that the way we model the world is always based on a certain viewpoint. At present, the predominant aim is to create a system of global exploitation: labour exploitation of millions of underpaid workers, mainly in countries of the Global South; exploitation of natural resources with an explosion in the demand for electricity and water, thus creating strong tensions worldwide, and the use of data that reproduces and exacerbates inequality in an unprecedented way.
Listen to the programme (in French)

In Le Monde, Matthieu Heslouin (E94), Executive Director of support activity at Bpifrance, pointed out that: ‘While AI holds great promises in terms of boosting productivity and growth, its use in French companies remains tentative, particularly in the smallest organisations; less than one SME in three uses generative AI. Obstacles include the complexity of tools and doubts on the return on investment.’ 
Read an extract (in French)

In Forbes, Cyrille Adam (M22) took stock of the operations he leads for major companies with his Yield Studio, a specialist in web and mobile development: ‘Companies devote huge budgets to badly-designed projects which ultimately remain unused. The result is millions of euros wasted, an unmanageable technical debt and widespread frustration. What’s the problem? Many still approach the matter of software from a purely IT perspective, whereas it is above all a question of product and business. 
Read the article (in French)

On BFM TV, Rémi Douchet (E05), co-founder of iVesta Family Office, and Audrey Soussan (E11), General Partner at Ventech Capital, shared their tips for responsible investment. No naive optimism, on one hand: ‘Looking at labels is not enough; one third of funds with European SFDR Article 9 classification are not impact funds. In addition, the offer totals just 1% of outstanding loans in France; it’s still too early to build a fully virtuous diversified asset allocation.’ Real prospects on the other hand: ‘Two-thirds of specialised funds target a performance which is at least equivalent to traditional funds.’
Watch the programme (in French)

Anne-Sophie Moreau (E10) has been touring the media to promote her essay Fermentations, published recently by Seuil. She explores how food, as well as cosmetics, medicine, the economy and design are currently praising the virtues of rotten matter, and why this trend reveals a significant shift in our approach to the body, health, nature, life and even politics.
See reports in Le Monde, Télérama, Le Nouvel Obs, Les Inrocks, L’Opinion and on Le Quotidien on TF1, and on Arte, France Inter, as well as France Culture (in French)
Read also our article (in French)

Entrepreneurship

On Maddyness, Cédric Curtil (E95), Executive Director of CentraleSupélec Ventures, takes us behind the scenes of this ‘alumni fund’ through which experienced graduates can fund projects by younger entrepreneurs while generating returns for the School’s ecosystem. ‘We’ve developed a data-driven model which enables us to process the 600-plus applications we receive annually more effectively. When a project requires an external opinion, we rapidly call on ten or so subscribers via our platform, with the consent of the start-up. This provides us with expert insight while respecting confidentiality.’
Read the article (in French)

Les Échos announced that the start-up Wavo, founded by Adrien Plat (BBA 08), is raising €3.5M, with Tony Parker in particular, to help very small and small enterprises to fund their stocks. ‘Bankers are reluctant to take on these accounts which they consider to be unprofitable and difficult to assess. This represents a sufficiently large hole in the net for us to come up with an alternative mechanism, based on scoring algorithms.
Read an extract (in French)

France 2 devoted a report to the start-up Kikleo, co-founded by Martin d’Agay (E22) and Vincent Garcia (E22), which provides a solution to the food waste generated in university canteens. ‘We install cameras which analyse every food tray to identify what is eaten and what’s left aside. This data is then processed on our platform to help canteen teams adjust their portions while maintaining a balanced meal offer. The results speak for themselves; while 100 g of food on average is wasted per person and per meal in France, this amount falls to 11 g with our solution.’ 
See the video (in French)

On BSmart, Elsa Chai (E16) presents Open Climat, the platform she created to help companies share the data they possess on their environmental actions. ‘This transparency helps to boost collaboration between the various players along the value chain, inspire concrete solutions between stakeholders, and transform isolated efforts into a collective and systemic response.’ 
Watch the programme (in French)
See also our interview 

In Le Maine Libre, Alexandra Legmann Pelletier (E09) retraced her career from major agri-food groups in China to the takeover of the craft biscuit producer Drans, in Sablé. ‘When I entered the working world, I thought that, like my parents, I would only ever work for one company. But life is long. You have to listen to yourself and find what makes you happy.’ 
Read an extract (in French)

International

On CNBC Arabia, Alexandre Salem (E11), Executive Vice President MENA & APAC of the Swedish video game studio Stillfront, deciphers the changes in this sector over the last decade: ‘All indicators are on green. There are more players, more revenues per player, more supports, content and languages, thanks notably to AI. Not to mention a major shift in perception; gaming is no longer considered as an activity just for geeks or nerds.’
Watch the programme (starting at 5'15'')

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