PFirst woman to chair the discreet but influential French Association of Private Enterprises (Afep), Patricia Barbizet was a pioneer from her studies, before becoming a faithful member of the Pinault clan and a regular on the boards of directors of the CAC 40.
“As a teenager, I would have quite willingly done politics”, confided in 2021 to the entrepreneur and podcaster Pauline Laigneau, the one who then liked to watch the release of the Council of Ministers on television.
A taste for public affairs which will not serve it at Afep, used to whispering in the government’s ear to defend the interests of big business.
Bathed in culture from an early age, with a filmmaker father and a painter mother, Patricia Barbizet, who had been at Renault for 12 years, saw her life “change in 12 hours” in October 1988 following her meeting with François Pinault. , she tells Pauline Laigneau.
“I met him on the day of the IPO of the Pinault group, (at the time) a group of wood and building materials” long before becoming a renowned luxury giant Kering.
“I was very impressed in a few minutes”, the meeting was “a kind of professional thunderbolt”.
The beginning of a steady ascent within the Pinault galaxy, until becoming president of the group’s supervisory board – the first woman to hold such a position in a CAC 40 company.
Thirty years after joining the Pinault group, she left Artémis, the Pinault family’s investment company, in November 2017.
Aged 68, the one who was part of the first promotion of the ESCP business school open to women is far from having retired, even if she cultivates her discretion and rarely speaks in the media.
“Politics without being political”
She founded Temaris et Associés, a technology and innovation investment company.
Former president of the Philharmonie de Paris and of the very elitist association Le Siècle, Patricia Barbizet sat on numerous boards of directors of big names in French capitalism (Bouygues, Air France, TotalEnergies, Pernod Ricard, CMA CGM, etc.) .
Enough to concoct a solid address book, despite the fact that she has never led a large group alone.
Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor since January 1, 2023, she knows Afep well since she chairs the High Committee of Corporate Governance, responsible for ensuring the proper application in companies of the recommendations issued by the employers’ lobby. and the Medef.
Another “public service mission” according to her expression, Patricia Barbizet has also chaired the Future Investments Monitoring Committee since 2018.
“There, for once I satisfy my desire to be political without being political”, she confided in her interview with Pauline Laigneau.
“It is non-executive, but it is a committee which brings together both parliamentarians and qualified personalities and which has the task of evaluating and supporting government decisions on major government plans.”
Mother of one child, after growing up surrounded by four brothers and sisters, Ms. Barbizet made her appearance in 2002 in the prestigious ranking of the 25 most influential European women established by the Wall Street Journal.
Ms. Barbizet is the wife of Jean Barbizet, a former Barclays bank executive appointed in 2015 to head ANZ, another financial institution.
If she considers that she has not experienced any great failure in her life, “a grain of sand served me as a great lesson: it was when I had applied for a preparatory course and they had answered me + does not seem able to follow the class with profit+”.
“I found it extremely unpleasant and I swore to prove them wrong,” she explained in 2021.
30/06/2023 04:12:14 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
2023-06-30 04:01:48
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