Didier Pineau-Valencienne

Didier Pineau-Valencienne, born March 21, 1931 in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, is a French business leader, CEO of Schneider Electric.

Biography
Coming from a Vendée family, Didier Pineau Valencienne studied at HEC Paris and then left for the United States to continue his studies at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and Harvard Business School.

After working for a time in the Gallimard group, he joined the Empain group, where he organized the purchase of a part of Schneider in the 1960s. He took over one of the Empain group companies on the verge of bankruptcy: Carbonisation Et Charbon Actifs (CECA). The company reforms and manages to make profits. In 1969, DPV left the Empain group to join Rhône-Poulenc, where he took charge of the subsidiaries in crisis with the mission of restructuring them. He then integrated the group's management strategy and control, implemented American management methods and participated in the strategic reorientation of the group in difficulties due to the first oil crisis. Director of the industrial divisions of polymers and petrochemicals, Édouard-Jean Empain called him to lead the Schneider group.

Appointed CEO of the Empain-Schneider group in 1980, Didier Pineau-Valencienne restructured the group by applying management methods acquired in Rhône-Poulenc: he established the strategy and management control upon his arrival. He organizes the transformation of the group seeking to integrate it into what is then a non-unified conglomerate of companies. However, the group's significant difficulties, with the effects of the oil crises and the economic crisis, led to a profound redefinition of the company's structure. After several months of fruitless negotiations with Pierre Mauroy's government and the failure of state intervention in the Creusot-Loire group, Didier Pineau-Valencienne was forced to liquidate the group in 1984. This bankruptcy had a great impact. This failure, which Didier Pineau Valencienne analyzes as a consequence of excessive politicization of the issue, led to a major restructuring of the Schneider group, which lost a large part of its activities.

The 80s, however, marked great successes for Didier Pineau-Valencienne: the integration, as well as the application of accounting and strategic methods, allowed the group to reorient itself in the electricity sector and progressively become one of the world leaders. The two hostile takeover bids with Télémécanique and with the American company Square D are a success. These two acquisitions made Schneider the world leader in electrical distributors in the early 1990s. DPV organizes the gradual integration of the group, then made up of subsidiaries, and simplifies the financial arrangements by acquiring the various subsidiaries of the group to attract shareholders and changes the name of the company that becomes Schneider Electric. During one of these takeover bids, in 1993, the Belgian justice system disturbed him. He was even remanded in custody in Brussels for twelve days. On this occasion we talk again about the kidnapping of Baron Empain in 1978, which led him to abandon his responsibilities at the head of the group. At that time, rumors spoke of a political-business maneuver aimed at discrediting a Belgian at the head of a company that, over time, had become increasingly French. The 2006 ruling does not mention this issue and only condemns Didier Pineau-Valencienne for fraud. However, after twelve years of proceedings, after the reasonable period had been exceeded, no sentence was imposed. After having reoriented the group's activity towards the electrical sector and having abandoned the metallurgical and steel sectors of the former Empain group, he launched the Schneider 2000 plan in 1995 to accelerate the integration and profitability of the group and left the management. of the Schneider group in 1999, at the age of 66.

In addition to Schneider's leadership, Didier Pineau-Valencienne supports the creation of the euro and a free trade area. At the request of the Minister of Education, Jack Lang, in 1993, and of François Bayrou, in 1996, he drafted two reports. In these reports, he advocated the development of apprenticeship training and the integration of business into university courses. In 1997 he assumed responsibility for social affairs and vice president of the CNPF, supporting diploma internships. In the 2010s, he launched into financing innovative companies through the private equity fund Sagard, but also through Montaigne Capital.