Word: frenchly
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...Indeed, the profile of the average French board member painted by the Ernst & Young report seems frozen in time: the person is typically a 59-year-old male from one of France's élite graduate schools. He probably serves on more than one board. (French law permits people to hold seats on up to five companies' boards at the same time.) French boardrooms are far less diverse than those in other nations; a survey last month by the independent Politico-Economic Observatory of Capitalistic Structures (PEOCS) indicates that the concentration of business power is greater in France than...
...This is a clear and unabashed oligarchy situation in which 150 people, max, run French business in a collusive but entirely legal manner," says Eric Grémont, a co-founder of PEOCS and a co-author of its upcoming book A la Découvert des Grands Patrons (Fleshing Out the Big Bosses). "You hear and read a lot about dynamic new companies and rising CEOs, but those are the tiny exceptions to the wider rule: French business is controlled by a small élite of very powerful men free to decide things as they wish - so long...
...financiers. Analyses show that a disproportionate number of people sitting on the boards of the CAC 40 companies come from the country's largest and most influential corporations - mainly banks and financial firms - giving them considerable influence over the operations of the other companies. Four executives from the French bank BNP Paribas, for example, sit on the boards of 12 other CAC 40 companies, including the environmental-services group Veolia, the oil giant Total and the aerospace consortium EADS. (Read "Christophe de Margerie: Big Oil's Straight Talker...
...elsewhere. But because of the historical coziness of corporate France - and the current conservative government's pro-business philosophies - the private sector has largely been left to police its own boardroom policies. And this has brought forth little change. When France's main employers' groups, the Movement of the French Enterprises and the Association of French Private Enterprises, drew up corporate-representation guidelines in 2000 to try to diversify French boards, they were virtually ignored. Legislation was recently introduced to require companies to reserve at least 40% of their board seats for women by 2016, but critics note similar parity...
...surprising that virtually all of the country's top executives were educated in the same institutions as those who have long dominated French politics: France's exclusive grandes écoles. These polytechnic, administrative and business graduate schools not only hone the intellectual mettle of the students they accept but also help them create the networks they'll need to rise to the highest circles of power. The problem is that the seats at these schools tend to go to the children of the élite, ensuring that power stays in the upper class - even in the same families - from generation...