He was criticized for having full power at Danone. Grenoblois Emmanuel Faber was ousted on Monday March 1 from the group’s general management by the board of directors. Portrait of this atypical boss who annoys financial circles.
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Danone boss Emmanuel Faber, destabilized by a sling of shareholders who will force him to cede the general management of the group, had carved out an atypical image within the CAC 40, that of a demanding boss torn between his pleas for social justice and the demands of financial markets.
“If you believe that it is me who decides at Danone, you are wrong”, could we hear him say in recent weeks in an interview or during the presentation of the new headquarters of Danone France, at the end of January. The joke sounded strangely for this boss of the CAC 40 who was criticized for having full powers at the head of the French flagship of the agri-food industry – he had been CEO since the end of 2017 – without managing to straighten out sales and the stock market price. Full powers that he has, de facto, lost Monday, after the board of directors decided to entrust general management to another, probably within a few months, leaving him however the presidency.
It was the subject of a hostile campaign by investment funds judging the group’s performance to be insufficient. A “opportunistic maneuver” of funds in search of added value responding to the “market rule “, we analyze in the entourage of the 57-year-old leader.
The latter is preceded by an image of a monk-soldier of responsible capitalism, blurred, however, by the announcement in November of a slimming treatment among managers (up to 2,000 positions concerned worldwide out of 100,000). Objective: to restore profitability battered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Like a comeback of market imperatives, a few months after a symbolic victory.
In June, shareholders voted for Danone’s transformation into a “mission-oriented company”, a statute which requires it to pursue extra-financial objectives, particularly in terms of environmental protection.
“You have just unbolted a statue of Milton Friedman [économiste américain considéré comme un des pères du néolibéralisme, NDLR]. This may worry some, but let them be reassured, there are still many “, launched Emmanuel Faber, shortly after recalling his desire to see “a finance that serves the economy that serves people”.
“Steve Jobs of the food industry”
An atypical speech for the leader of one of the largest agri-food companies in the world (23.6 billion euros in turnover last year), but consistent with the Catholic faith that animates this man, married and father of three children.
In 2019, he gave up his top hat retirement and his non-compete indemnity in the event of his departure from Danone.
He had also marked the spirits in 2016 by affirming, without a tie, that “without social justice, there would be no more economy” in front of graduates of the prestigious HEC business school, from which he himself came.
He then described the fate of his schizophrenic brother, now deceased: “Because of him, I discovered the friendship of homeless people, from time to time I go to sleep with them. (…) I went to stay in slums in Delhi, Bombay, Nairobi, Jakarta. I went to the Aubervilliers slum, you know it’s not very far from where we live, in Paris (…). I went to the Calais jungle. “
Born in 1964 in Grenoble, the man with the appearance of an ascetic, who says he finds his “life balance” in the mountains and climbing, began his career as an investment banker.
He joined Danone in 1997 where he became the lieutenant of Franck Riboud, son of the founder Antoine Riboud. He was appointed Chief Executive Officer in 2014.
Arrived in a gloomy climate, Emmanuel Faber orchestrates the takeover of the organic giant WhiteWave (valued at $ 12.5 billion), the group’s biggest acquisition in ten years which brings it straight into the American market. Then took over the chairmanship of Danone at the end of 2017.
A senior executive in the group describes him as “a Janus, a man with two faces. ”“ He can be humanist, inspiring and penetrating, in his speeches on the transformation of the world. He is also a captain of industry, a financier, anchored in an investment banking culture. As soon as we talk about a deal or money, he can taste like blood in his mouth. He is capable of being both, that can be unsettling. But he is not a hypocrite “, says this source.
A trade unionist hires him a boss “very accessible to social partners “, anxious to explain its strategy. When another slice: “Qhen there is a choice to be made, the economy wins over the social.“Three of the group’s four labor organizations defended its governance when investment funds demanded its head.
As for financial circles, “he certainly annoys them a little”, summarizes an analyst, for whom he is perceived “as being a bit like the Steve Jobs of the food industry “: he shares with the co-founder of Apple the taste for turtlenecks and the evocation of a vision “very long term “.
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