Anne Lauvergeon

Anne Lauvergeon (born August 2, 1959 in Dijon ) is a French businesswoman . Since 1999 she has been CEO of the atomic group Cogema , which under her leadership merged with other companies in the nuclear industry to form the Areva Group. After the company, she resigned from this position in June 2011. She is a member of the boards of Total , SAFRAN , Vodafone and EADS , and from 2000 to 2012 she also held this position at Suez . From 2004 to 2010 she is in the list of 100 most powerful women in the world of Forbes Magazine out. In 2008 it was ranked 8th in the world, and in 2007 it was 14th. In France it was number 1 and in Europe it was 3rd.

Anne Lauvergeon (2009)

In 2006 she was the female manager with the most employees worldwide and was considered one of the most powerful women in the world. Anne Lauvergeon chairs the board of directors of the École des Mines de Nancy and heads a group of friends and supporters of the Institut François Mitterrand . She is a member of the French Socialist Party . Well-known opponents of the militant socialist manager were the conservative politicians Thierry Breton and Jacques Chirac , in the event of a victory for the presidential candidate Ségolène Royal in 2007 , she was under discussion for a ministerial office. In the same year, Anne Lauvergeon turned down a request for entry into the Sarkozy government . In 2013 and 2014 she was a member of a commission set up by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault to determine scientific, economic and business challenges for the coming years.

biography

In 1978 she started the École Normale Supérieure . She completed her teaching degree in physics before entering the field of mining science.

In 1983 she completed an internship at Usinor , and in 1984 she worked in the reactor safety department. From 1985 to 1988 she worked for the IGC and in industry and environmental agencies. In 1990 she worked as an economic representative at François Mitterrand and as a political sherpa in preparation for G7 meetings.

From 1995 Anne Lauvergeon worked in the banking sector, u. a. at Lazard . In 1997 she joined the management team at Alcatel . She is married and has two children, a son and a daughter.

Activity in the nuclear industry

The Olkiluoto nuclear power plant with the EPR under construction in the background as a photomontage

In 1999 she became head of Cogema , succeeding Jean Syrota . 2001 Cogema was with Framatome and Siemens shares to Areva merged.

Under her leadership, the former state-owned company showed more openness, for example with the controversial La Hague reprocessing plant . Within the Areva she has increased the proportion of women from 10 to 20% and is committed to a better work-life balance .

The most important project for Areva is the new European pressurized water reactor EPR . AREVA received the first order for a new reactor ("Block 3") in Olkiluoto , Finland in 2003. The EPR is intended to merge the French and German pressurized water reactor lines and was considered a key project for a possible European renaissance of nuclear energy . Construction in Finland started in August 2005. Anne Lauvergeon was blamed for delays and problems in this development and implementation (for construction problems see here ).

After the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident on March 11, 2011, representatives of the Japanese opposition such as B. Tarō Kōno, the crisis management of Tōkyō Denryoku (Tokyo Electric Power Company - TEPCO) strongly criticized and called for the immediate involvement of foreign experts and equipment. Two weeks later, Lauvergeon flew to Japan with a group of experts from the Marcoule nuclear power plant . With this high-profile action, Lauvergeon seemed to secure its position at the top of the Areva group, after it had previously been under severe public criticism for inadequate crisis management. However, after Areva had announced an operating loss of 423 million euros for 2010 in June 2011, Lauvergeon had to take over the management of Areva on the decision of the President of the Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy , and against the recommendation of the President of the Supervisory Board, Jean-Cyril Spinetta submit. The responsible minister, Éric Besson , certified it had a “good record” and expressed the conviction that Lauvergeon's successor and current deputy, Luc Oursel , would continue her strategies. After leaving Areva, Lauvergeon received a severance payment of 1.5 million euros, as well as 319,045 euros as compensation for expenses in the second half of 2011 (for the secretariat, bodyguards and security service).

Activities in administrative and supervisory boards

In July 2011, Lauvergeon was appointed chairman of the board of directors of Liberation at the suggestion of Édouard de Rothschild , the daily newspaper's major shareholder . In 2011, she was also appointed president of a foundation of the Union des industries et métiers de la métallurgie (UIMM) , the French metalworkers' association.

Before the 2012 presidential election , there was speculation that if François Hollande won , Lauvergeon could become a member of a socialist government. In April 2012, her book La Femme qui résiste ("The woman who defends herself"), in which she wrote her own, was published View of the creation and development of Areva. On this occasion, she renews her criticism of the state policy pursued by Nicolas Sarkozy as a shareholder in large companies and of Henri Proglio's corporate policy in the management of Électricité de France (EDF) , the publicly listed, state-dominated French electricity company.

In November 2012, Anne Lauvergeon was appointed by the Ayrault government to the steering committee of the national debate on the energy transition ( transition énergétique ). It was included in the French government's plans to create a European energy community. In November 2012 she was appointed president of the endowment fund for the future Mémorial de Rivesaltes .

Since March 2013, Anne Lauvergeon has been a member of the Supervisory Board of Airbus Group SE (until 2013 European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, EADS). In France there was at times speculation about Lauvergeon's efforts to become CEO of the aerospace company. Her supervisory board mandate expired in March 2016.

In April 2013 Anne Lauvergeon was appointed by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault to chair an “innovation commission” made up of scientists, economists and entrepreneurs, which aims to “prepare France technologically and industrially for the challenges of the next 20 years”. Together with Kemal Derviş , she became chairman of the scientific advisory board of the Franco-Turkish think tank Institut du Bosphore in the same year .

In February 2014, Lauvergeon resigned from the board of directors of Liberation, which was in great economic difficulties .

On March 5, 2014, multinational mining company Rio Tinto announced the addition of Anne Lauvergeon to its board of directors.

The UraMin affair

In January 2012, Anne Lauvergeon was first suspected of being implicated in fraud involving the Canadian mining company UraMin , founded in 2004 and registered in the British Virgin Islands . Areva had taken over UraMin in 2007 for the high price of 1.8 billion euros (from public funds) without this company ever having mined ore at all. Lauvergeon decided to buy the company against the advice of her employees. An internal investigation committee quickly convened by Areva exonerated the former president. There was no evidence of the suspected bribes and kick-back payments to politicians in African countries, especially the Republic of South Africa , where the company's ore mines are located. As a result, Lauvergeon's husband, management consultant Olivier Fric , who specializes in mineral ore trading, was suspected of insider trading because he had acquired a large stake in the mining company in 2007 just before it was taken over by Areva. In this context, Fric has been officially investigated since March 23, 2016.

The French Court of Auditors is investigating Lauvergeon's work at Areva in 2014. He criticizes Lauvergeon's business activities, their salary development, in particular a salary increase based on false success information and in particular the failure of the EPR and the purchase of UraMin. The two last-mentioned ventures cost the French state several billion euros due to poor preparation by Areva. In support of her justification, Anne Lauvergeon points out that the chairman of the board, Jean-Cyril Spinetta, did not object to the terms of the acquisition of UraMin and that Areva's balance sheets were confirmed by several auditors . The Court of Auditors opened a preliminary investigation into Lauvergeon's management between 2007 and 2010 for “submitting or publishing an inaccurate or unreliable balance sheet” and “disseminating false or fraudulent information”.

On February 17, 2016, Lauvergeon was held responsible for the Areva Group's losses of between 10 and 15 billion euros in the magazine program "Pièces à conviction" on France 3 .

In May 2016, proceedings were opened against Lauvergeon for “submitting or publishing an imprecise or unreliable balance sheet”.

literature

Publications by Anne Lauvergeon

• (with Jean-Luc Delpeuch): Sur les traces des dirigeants, la vie du chef dans les grandes entreprises , Éditions Calmann-Lévy, Paris 1988, 1992. ISBN 978-2-7021-1654-8
• (with Michel-H. Jamard): La Troisième Révolution énergétique , Éditions Plon, Paris 2008. ISBN 978-2-259-20692-1
• (with Bertrand Barre): Les 100 mots du nucléaire , series « Que sais-je? », Paris 2009. ISBN 978-2-13-057209-1
• La Femme qui résiste , Éditions Plon, Paris 2012. ISBN 978-2-259-21863-4
• La Promesse , Editions Grasset, Paris 2015. ISBN 978-2-246-85729-7

Publications about Anne Lauvergeon

• Jean-Louis Pérez: Anne Lauvergeon, le pouvoir à tout prix , Éditions du Seuil, Paris 2014. ISBN 978-2021182507

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Defense News: France Names Ex-Areva Boss to EADS Board
2. ^ Inspection Générale des Carrières der DRIRE ( Direction régionale de l'industrie, de la recherche et de l'environnement ) Ile-de-France
3. ↑ Kim Rahir: France's most powerful woman: Atomic Anne In: Der Spiegel from December 30, 2006.
4. ↑ Michael Mönninger: Those who oppose them will be overrun , Die Zeit , February 1, 2007 (last checked on June 5, 2016)
5. ↑ Reuters Anne Lauvergeon et des experts d'Areva se rendent au Japon ( Memento of the original from April 10, 2011 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  Reuters March 29, 2011
6. ↑ Hans-Hagen Bremer: France "Atomic Anne" is back Tagesspiegel, March 31, 2011 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
7. ↑ Susanne Götze & Felix Werdermann: Savior instead of scapegoat: How Areva distinguishes itself through Fukushima , Telepolis , April 9, 2011 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
8. ↑ Jacqueline Hénard: Miss Atomstrom. She is the most powerful manager in France. She named her nuclear company after a Spanish monastery. She doesn't want to know anything about incidents: For Anne Lauvergeon, nuclear power remains the best solution for climate protection , Cicero , August 20, 2008 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
9. ↑ Holger Alich: Areva boss Lauvergeon: France's best-known top manager has to go , Wirtschaftswoche , June 16, 2011 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
10. ^ Christian Schubert: Areva without Atomic Anne as well as NN: State company Areva: France dismisses atomic chief Lauvergeon , both in FAZ , June 17, 2011
11. ↑ Luc Oursel succédera à Anne Lauvergeon à la tête d'Areva . Le Monde , June 16, 2011 (last checked on May 29, 2016)
12. ↑ Document de référence Areva 2011 , pp. 177f. (last accessed on May 29, 2016)
13. ↑ Nicolas Demorand: “À nos lecteurs” , Liberation, July 13, 2011 (last checked on June 5, 2016)
14. ↑ Violent retour de bâton pour Anne Lauvergeon , L'Expansion.com , April 13, 2012 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
15. ↑ Thierry Lévêque & Yann Le Guernigou: Passe d'armes entre Nicolas Sarkozy et Anne Lauvergeon ( Memento of the original from June 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Le Point , April 13, 2014 (last checked on June 4, 2016) 
16. ↑ Lauvergeon pilotera le débat sur l'énergie , Le Figaro , November 10, 2012 (last accessed on June 4, 2016)
17. ↑ Lauvergeon décroche une mission du gouvernement sur l'Europe de l'énergie , La Tribune , November 9, 2012 (last accessed June 4, 2012)
18. ^ Anne Lauvergeon présidente du fonds de dotation du mémorial de Rivesaltes , L'Indépendant , November 15, 2012 (last accessed June 4, 2016)
19. ↑ Anne Lauvergeon en piste pour la présidence d'EADS ( Memento of the original of June 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Challenges.fr, January 28, 2013 (last accessed June 4, 2016) 
20. ↑ Airbus Group proposes new board members for nomination at the Annual General Meeting (last checked on June 4, 2016)
21. ^ Anne Lauvergeon à la tête d'une commission sur l'innovation , Le Monde , April 8, 2013 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
22. ↑ Press release of the Institut du Bosphore of September 9, 2013: Anne Lauvergeon, nouvelle co-présidente du Comité scientifique de l'Institut du Bosphore (last checked on June 4, 2016)
23. ↑ Liberation: Lauvergeon démissionne, Nicolas révoqué , Le Figaro , February 19, 2014 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
24. ↑ Anne Lauvergeon entre au conseil d'administration de Rio Tinto ( Memento of the original of June 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Challenges , March 5, 2014
25. ↑ Soupçons d'escroquerie lors du rachat d'Uramin par Areva , Le Monde , January 13, 2012 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
26. ↑ Alain Deneault & William Sacher: L'industrie minière pure du Canada. La Bourse de Toronto séduit les sociétés de prospection et d'extraction . Le Monde diplomatique , September 2013 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
27. ↑ Uramin: Lauvergeon disculpée par Areva , L'Expansion.com , February 15, 2012 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
28. ↑ "Lauvergeon déboutée de son action en contre référé Areva" , La Tribune , May 13, 2012
29. ↑ Scandale Areva-Uramin: le rôle obscur du mari d'Anne Lauvergeon , Capital, January 15, 2016 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
30. ↑ Rachat d'Uramin: le mari de l'ex-patronne d'Areva mis en examen , Le Figaro , March 30, 2016 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
31. ↑ Interview with Olivier Fric: Anne Lauvergeon's captive husband , Arte , May 24, 2016 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
32. ↑ Jean-Michel Bezat: Areva: la Cour des comptes accable la gestion Lauvergeon . Le Monde , May 16, 2014 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
33. ^ V. de Senneville & P. ​​Pogama: Areva: le bilan inquiétant des années Lauvergeon . Les Échos , May 12, 2014 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
34. ↑ Jean-Michel Bezat: Areva: la Cour des comptes accable la gestion Lauvergeon . Le Monde, May 16, 2014 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
35. ↑ La Cour des comptes charge Anne Lauvergeon et sa gestion d'Areva , Le Figaro , May 13, 2014 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
36. ↑ Excerpts from "Pièces à conviction" from February 17, 2016: "Quel rôle a joué celle qui fut son emblématique patronne, Anne Lauvergeon?" (last checked on June 4, 2016)
37. ^ "Affaire UraMin: Anne Lauvergeon mise en examen" , Le Monde , May 13, 2016 (last checked on June 4, 2016)
38. ↑ Interview with Lauvergeon's lawyer Jean-Pierre Versini: "Lauvergeon does not cheat" Arte , May 24, 2016 (last checked on June 4, 2016)

Web links

Commons : Anne Lauvergeon  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Areva & Uramin: A time bomb for the French nuclear industry , web documentation on Arte (last checked on June 4, 2016)