Tech IT Easy

Of course Tech IT Easy’s raison d’être isn’t to be a diary. But I don’t listen to a CEO speaking everyday. This week at Ecole Centrale Paris, we had the pleasure to host the CEO of energy company Areva, Anne Lauvergeon.

Anne Lauvergeon, 47 + 2 young kids aged 3.5 & 6.5, was ranked #1 most influential woman in France, #2 in Europe (after Nokia’s Sari Baldauf), and #8 in the world. However, Anne Lauvergeon didn’t seem to give a damn about these titles. She rather emphasized on her company, Areva, being ranked #1 most admired global company by Fortune Magazine recently, or herself nominated by the Financial Times as the #2 most fashionable business person

Although the energy business is not especially my cup of tea, I have to admit most challenges we as citizens of the world face have to do with energetical resources. I’m not trying here to reproduce the entire lecture (since most of it was about presenting Areva), but rather writing what I remember from it, since there’s definitely lots of good stuff from a great person.

Anne Lauvergeon perfectly put into equations the world’s upcoming challenges during this lecture:

• The world’s population should double in the next 50 years;
• Meanwhile, CO2 emissions have to be cut twofold unless what we want is an environmental catastrophy.
• So, there is a x4 necessary improvement factor in the energy business: x2 in quantity, x2 in quality.

Areva is a non-CO2-energies only company, mastering the whole nuclear cycle (world leader) and manufacturing electrical networks (#3 worldwide). Areva operates in 43 country, sells in 128, and makes 3/4th of its annual revenues outside France. Areva possesses uranium mines in countries such as Canada, Niger, Australia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, etc. A graduate from top school Ecole des Mines de Paris, among other, Lauvergeon is very keen on easing conditions of mine workers at all levels (health care, access to electricity for all: without electricity, life expectancy goes down to 35). The countries she spends more time on at the moment are fast-growing energy-consumption-wise China, India and Brazil.

According to Anne Lauvergeon, Areva’s top 3 challenges are:

1. improving energetical security;
2. being everyday more competitive;
3. facing climate change through the integration of sustainable development issues in daily managerial practices.

In order to do so, managers at Areva are assessed via 4 criteria:

1. financial metrics, of course;
2. safety;
3. respect of the environment;
4. social care of their people.

On her everyday job, Anne Lauvergeon said she focused on: strategy, making big picture decisions, chosing the right people, saving the environment, meeting key clients. Lauvergeon said she hates to lose - although she claims (believe it or not) not to be that ambitious, and believes she was successful thanks to her network: she met the right people at the right time (Raymond Lévy, a former CEO of Renault; François Mitterrand, a former French President; Serge Tchuruk, Alcatel-Lucent’s Chairman of the board, etc.).

As far as I’m concerned, the one thing to bring back home is that if you don’t go the extra mile, go farther, you lose. In other words, there’s no stable situation. Either you improve and get better or you lose skills. Status quo doesn’t basically exist.