Guillaume Pepy

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Guillaume Pepy (2013)

Guillaume Pepy (born May 26, 1958 in Neuilly-sur-Seine ) is a French government official and manager . From 2008 to 2019 he was President of the French national railway company SNCF .

Life

Pepy was born in the Paris suburb of Neuilly as the son of a lawyer and a chief secretary. He attended the private school École alsacienne in the 6th arrondissement of Paris , then the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (IEP) and finally the École nationale d'administration (ENA), where he was a member of the Louise Michel doctorate (senior year 1984).

Immediately after graduating from the ENA, he became an auditor in the Conseil d'État in 1984 . 1987–1988 he was Deputy Secretary General of the Conseil d'État .

From 1988 he worked in various ministries before becoming a personal advisor (Directeur de cabinet) to Labor Minister Martine Aubry ( PS ) in 1991 .

In 1993 he worked for the SNCF , where he was initially (until 1994) Director of Strategy and Planning under PDG Jean Bergougnoux , then in 1995 Director of Economy, Strategy and Investments.

After working for the market research group Sofres from 1995 to 1997 as deputy general director, he returned to SNCF in 1997, where he was head of the long-distance transport division under Louis Gallois, initially until 1998 . From 1998 to 2003 he was responsible for customer relations, regional traffic , long-distance traffic, the Transilien trains in the greater Paris area, as well as for the stations and rolling stock . Since 2000 he has been a member of the Executive Committee of the SNCF. In 2003 Pepy became directeur général exécutif of the SNCF, with which Gallois made him number 2 in the group.

In 2008, following an initially hesitant attitude from the government under President Nicolas Sarkozy, he became CEO of the SNCF, largely because of his good reputation with the social partners . In 2013, Pepy's mandate was renewed under Sarkozy's successor, François Hollande . His successor at the helm of the railway company was Jean-Pierre Farandou on November 1, 2019 .

Create

During his work for Minister of Labor Martine Aubry , Pepy earned the reputation of an excellent negotiator, which earned him lasting respect, especially among the unions .

Pepy played a key role in SNCF's entry into the digital age, for example in the creation of the web portal voyages-sncf.fr (2000) and the low-cost subsidiary iDTGV for long-distance transport in 2004. He also implemented a system of variable fares based on the model of air traffic.

As head of the group from 2008, Pepy , who is considered to be left-wing liberal, had two far-reaching reform tasks: opening up French rail transport to competition and modernizing the particularly badly loss-making freight transport division.

As a supporter of the TGV high-speed train network , he strives to expand it further and does not shy away from closing regional transport lines .

Even heavily mediated breakdowns and accidents such as those in Brétigny-sur-Orge 2013 and Eckwersheim 2015 did not lead to his replacement. After these events, no politician asked for Pepy to be replaced at the head of the SNCF.

criticism

In 2013 the French Court of Auditors, the Cour des Comptes, reported very high public relations expenditure by the SNCF; between 2007 and 2011 these had amounted to around 210 million euros per year. The Court of Auditors complained about wasteful spending and irregular contracts. The radio station France Inter reported that Pepy personally selected the advertising agencies by circumventing the obligation to tender.

Private life

His long-term partner was Richard Descoings , the head of the IEP Paris, whom Pepy had met while working at the Conseil d'État . The close connection between Pepy and Descoings continued after Descoings' marriage to the IEP deputy director Nadia Marik in 2004. After Descoings' sudden death in New York in 2012, Pepy traveled there to transport the body; Obituaries for Descoings were published jointly by Marik and Pepy.

honors and awards

In 2001 Guillaume Pepy was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor , and in 2006 an officer of the National Order of Merit, Ordre national du Mérite .

Web links

Commons : Guillaume Pepy  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Anne Brigaudeau: Communicant redoutable, homme de réseaux, patron tenace ... Qui est Guillaume Pepy, le patron qui fait de la résistance à la tête de la SNCF? In: francetvinfo.fr . April 3, 2018, accessed July 14, 2018 (French).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Guillaume Pepy - biography. In: franceinter.fr . Retrieved July 14, 2018 (French).
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Guillaume Pepy: l'étonnant parcours du patron de la SNCF. In: capital.fr . Retrieved July 14, 2018 (French).
  4. ↑ Vincent Vérier: C'était le dernier jour de Pepy à la SNCF: "J'ai été extraordinairement heureux". In: leparisien.fr . October 31, 2019, accessed on May 20, 2020 (French).
  5. ↑ Laetitia Cherel: SNCF: Entreprise publique ou machine d'influence? In: franceinter.fr . October 21, 2017, accessed on July 14, 2018 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Pepy, Guillaume
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French high government official and manager
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuilly-sur-Seine