A 'meteorite' reaches the orange planet: this is how Christel Heydemann intends to revolutionize Orange

Every runner knows that, almost more important than speed, is knowing how to keep up.

New Orange CEO Christel Heydemann's race looks more like a sprint than the half-marathons and mountain walks she's so fond of.

But perseverance has also been a key to the success of this executive who, at 47, becomes the second woman to run a company in the CAC 40, the main French stock index, and one of the very few women to managers of a technology company.

Of course, it is one thing to reach the top and another to stay.

And the challenges that Heydemann will face from the top of his professional career are not few: Orange is a giant —more than 137,000 workers in 26 countries with 266 million customers and a turnover of 42,522 million in 2021—, but with numerous internal and external duties, starting with its second most important but extremely fragmented market: Spain.

Harassed by strong competition and a price war, Orange Spain's turnover has been in constant decline for two years.

"Spain is the Vietnam" of Orange, a director of the French company's competition told Le Monde.

In 2021, the revenue of the Spanish subsidiary of Orange fell by 4.7% and the profit contracted by 12.7%.

In this context,

In the market, pools have emerged that link the French firm with Másmóvil.

"We are actively working on consolidation in Spain", recognized this week the outgoing CEO of Orange, Stephane Richard.

during the presentation of the annual accounts.

The pending tasks behind closed doors are not minor either.

The group urgently needs to improve its market capitalization, which in five years has lost a third of its value.

Something that could be done by promoting the listing of its cybersecurity subsidiary, Orange Cyberdéfense, one of the company's "treasures", one of the many decisions in which Heydemann will have the last word.

It also has a structural problem before it: Orange must close its copper network on which, in France, some 20 million French people and companies still depend to have telephone and ADSL in areas not yet covered by fiber, which must reach these places at the latest in 2030.

He will also have to monitor the social environment of a very "traumatized" company, as recalled by Heydemann's predecessor, Stéphane Richard, who took over the company in 2010 and had to leave it after being convicted in November of "misappropriation of funds" in the arbitration case that involved the late businessman Bernard Tapie and also affected the current director of the ECB, Christine Lagarde.

Upon his arrival, the company was barely out of the so-called case of the suicides of France Télécom, the former name of Orange, whose managers were brought to trial in 2019 for "moral harassment", for imposing a work system that caused a wave of suicides between workers after the privatization of the former public telecommunications monopoly.

In this highly sensitive framework, Heydemann must also carry out the 2022-2024 intergenerational agreement closed at the end of last year between the board and the unions.

For this, Orange undertakes to recruit at least 8,000 people with indefinite contracts in France in the next two years, with "particular attention" for those under 30 years of age.

At the same time, it proposes from January 1 and until the first day of 2023 a voluntary "new part-time system" for older employees.

She is fond of trekking and climbing —although she abandoned this sport after having her two children—, to whom friends, colleagues and even trade unionists recognize her left hand to negotiate (she was responsible for human resources at Alcatel-Lucent) and facility for social interactions, is characterized by a clear feminist accent and an optimism that she will surely have to use more than once in her new challenge.

“I always see the glass as half full, I am convinced that people want to participate in positive projects.

Nothing can stop a convinced team,” she told Les Echos.

Preparation is not lacking.

Graduated from the prestigious French Polytechnic and Civil Engineering schools with a stint in the Army, and named

of the Davos Forum in 2012, he has forged a solid career in various sectors linked to technology.

He started in 1997 at the Boston Consulting Group.

Just two years later, she moved to Alcatel, where she played a major role in the merger process with Lucent before moving on to become general manager of human resources.

In 2014, she joined Schneider Electric as director of strategic alliances, although just three years later (they don't call her a "meteorite" for nothing) she was appointed president-general manager of Schneider Electric France, a position she held until May last year when the appointed general director of operations in Europe.

Parity policies

Although there have been no dissonant voices after his election, Heydemann was not Orange's favorite option, which mostly opted for the head of sales for the US operator Verizon, Frank Boulben, or for the current CEO of the group, Ramón Fernández.

Decisive for his appointment was the support of the Government —the State is the largest shareholder in Orange, with more than 20% of the capital—, which saw an opportunity to wink at parity policies (not always followed within its Executive) in a world as masculinized as the members of CAC 40.

The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, “wants more women to access government positions in large French companies”, according to what his Cabinet leaked.

Heydemann's name had been ringing in the corridors of the Government for some time.

In 2018, Le Maire himself and the then head of Equality, Marlène Schiappa, invited her to participate in a round table “for professional equality”.

Last year, she delivered to the Minister of Labour, Elisabeth Borne, the report

which she co-wrote with the sociologist Julien Damon, who describes her as a “healthy, hard-working, quick, down-to-earth woman, not at all a creature of political communication”.

Also for the vice president of the main French employer Medef, Dominique Carlach, the appointment of Heydemann is a "good sign of progress" that "responds to an expectation of society."

As it advocates in its report on conciliation, it will not have to do everything alone: ​​as in Renault, the State has opted for a two-headed address in Orange.

In addition to Heydemann, the technology giant must thus elect a president (or president) before May 19, the date of the Orange shareholders' meeting.