Suddenly, he was overwhelmed with emotion. Le 15 juin, en plein milieu de l’assemblée générale, cadre pourtant peu propice aux effusions, le PDG de Veolia, Antoine Frérot, a fondu en larmes au moment de laisser sa place au pupitre à sa numéro deux deux, esté elle Bra Moreover. Farewell in preparation for the big handover scheduled for 1^{he is} July. On that day, Estelle Brachlyanov, 49, took over as CEO, and Antoine Friot remained as non-executive chairman.

The global leader in recycling and water management has become the third CAC 40 company to be led by a woman, after Ingie (Katherine McGregor) and Orange (Christel Heydemann). Even if it seems almost fictional to the former General of Waters: the new chief is above all a polytechnic from Corps des Ponts et Chaussées, the royal road of Veolia, raised for seventeen years on the fine grain of landfills and water treatment plants.

After twelve years of rule, four of which were devoted to clearing the mines of coup attempts detonated by his predecessor, Henri Broglio, Antoine Friot – also X-Ponts – was eager to nurture his succession. In 2018, by appointing Estelle Brachlianoff the deputy general manager in charge of operations, his board warned that he intended to turn the reins over to him one day. A strategic plan, a health crisis, and a raid on Suez later, the work was over. “Antoine Frieu and the board of directors were able to judge it by the range of situations and difficulties that few leaders have faced in such a short time.”confirms Natalie Racho, director of Veolia.

“You have to wrinkle yourself a little.”

The one her employees gave her a watch as a parting gift because she was always late, she didn’t miss her meeting with the 220,000 employees of Veolia. “I never said to myself ‘You’re going to be a general manager,’ but I realized that others were thinking about it for me.”Commander admits. Starting with Dennis Gasquet, the former head of the waste division of Veolia who appointed her as project manager in 2005.

The latter asserts that after nearly two hours of interviewing this bright and open-minded young official, he had a hunch that she was going too far. But it is still necessary for the elegant thirty-year-old, a newborn from the province of Ile-de-France, to learn, ” The real life “. “You have to wrinkle yourself a little.” : This is the order issued by the guide to drink it. Do you see itself taking the lead in the Toulouse region? Send him to run a cleaning subsidiary, employing 15,000 people, with slaughterhouses, car factories and the metro as clients. A ruthless world where every penny counts. Profitability is recovering. back profession. ‘We had to keep making her suffer’Denis Gasquet smiles and pushes her to the head of the waste in the Ile-de-France region.

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