His initials already say a lot.
AOC.
Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, new general manager of the FFT, is a controlled designation of origin.
Vintage 1978. A grand cru matured in grape varieties of excellence from the formation of elites from France.
His CV, as long as his address book, turns heads.
High-level player until she was 18 (251st worldwide) then Sciences-po, Essec, a master's degree in law, ENA in the Senghor promotion of President Macron, the Court of Auditors, ten years at Axa and twenty -seven months at Carrefour, before finding full-time a touch of drunkenness of his youth on the side of Roland-Garros.
“I first left to be simply elected to the FFT because I loved Carrefour
(Editor's note: where she was executive director of e-commerce, data and digital transformation)
, explains the niece of journalists Patrice and Alain Duhamel.
But I finally chose to listen to my deep desire, to leave the golds of the CAC 40 executive committees to listen to my guts, to move the lines with an extremely motivating roadmap.
Just as much as his salary, 40% higher than that of his predecessor.
The price of a divine nectar.
"It's a war machine"
“Beyond her journey which has been narrated and repeated, Amélie is a truly exceptional person,” confides Julie Vaz, one of her closest friends.
She has many faces and a richness, a generosity that you don't necessarily suspect if you don't know her in private.
The two teenagers met on the edge of a court during the Le Havre Open in November 1992. Before meeting again a few years later… at a party at the Bus Palladium.
“Since then, we are like a breadcrumb trail for each other, summarizes the former -2/6, now a tax specialist in the Total group.
Amélie is extremely clairvoyant about what she is.
When she says she's a perfectionist, to say the least.
What has always fascinated me is that it is applied for everything.
When she writes, when she eats… She's a war machine, with a capacity for work that few people have.
She also likes others, with a lot of listening, which is a rather rare quality, even more in well-made heads.
"
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Former company employees rather remember a manager with whom it is better to spin as straight as a long line passing.
"The word
discuss
is not really part of his vocabulary," slips an ex-subordinate.
"I will never hesitate to part with someone who is very good technically but who is unmanageable in a team and, conversely, I will never settle for someone who is just a bit of
the GO on duty
of the team, but which does not work on the bottom, which does not really seek to find solutions, to wet the shirt in the service of the collective ”, answers the person concerned, on the site of the FFT.
In the mysteries of the Fédé, some therefore fear that there is little velvet around a firm left hand.
"She has great intelligence and finesse in the analysis of situations and people, corrects Alexis Gramblat, lawyer at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, who has worked with her since the age of nine.
She also has a great force of conviction.
Sometimes she can have a reserved side where she doesn't show her emotions.
This is why we do not always necessarily know what she is thinking when you are not in her close circle.
"
Ex-bête noire of Amélie Mauresmo
"I believe that the two terms which characterize it best in a friendly and professional manner are requirement and benevolence," suggests Thomas Remoleur, president of Olbia Conseil, who discovered it four years ago.
She knows how to decide, to tell someone that their roads separate but with a lot of empathy.
"
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Behind her soft voice and her BCBG allure, Gustavo Kuerten's former girlfriend in 1997 knows exactly what she wants.
In 2017, strongly anticipated, she saw herself as Minister of Sports.
Then dreamed of CEO of Paris 2024. “She fully assumes her choices, continues Julie Vaz.
With it, there is no hypocrisy or pretense.
She is not afraid of losing and makes the most of failure.
"
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Tennis: Escudé arrives at the national technical direction with "humility and a lot of certainties"
AOC does not remain in the carafe for long and in the process takes over the presidency of the association Rénovons le sport français, which advocates, among other things, the establishment of a new governance.
"She wanted to weigh in the sport, explains Thomas Remoleur, at the origin of the structure with Gramblat.
It was great having a girl of that caliber and it allowed her to have exposure and speak out with a warrant.
"
The Parisian by birth, who records her impressions every day in a diary, takes advantage of a professional in-between to actively participate in the development of a 35-point report on the future of the French sports model.
"When she's out there, she's in full swing, cowardly Remoleur."
She doesn't do things by halves.
"
The ex-bête noire of Amélie Mauresmo - whom she beat three times out of three among young people, before playing alongside her for her last double in the quarter-finals of Roland-Garros juniors 1996 - then got involved in the Ensemble Pour Un Autre Tennis list, with Gilles Moretton.
“It was inevitable that she would find herself there one day, slips Gramblat, himself an unfortunate candidate for the presidency of the FFT in 2017. She quit when she could claim a good career and she always kept this thing. in her.
How not to ask for it?
"
"There is a monk-soldier side to her"
Under the Gachassin era, this daughter and wife of an Enarque (she married in 2006 to Frédéric Oudéa, CEO of Société Générale, fifteen years her senior), mother of Pierre, Thomas and Vincent, had already been part of of the steering committee.
This time it has a strategic role.
One more challenge.
And size.
“There is a monk-soldier side to her,” observes Julie Vaz, also wedding witness and godmother of Thomas.
She is like that, she only feels pleasure in the challenge, the surpassing.
She always tells me:
I prefer the north faces to the south faces
.
Look for the complication, go beyond what we can do.
The only difference is that this time she also made the choice of the heart and, knowing her, it is courageous.
"
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FFT: Gilles Moretton, the new boss, wants to "bring together the tennis family"
The new DG has defined its three main areas of work: return of the joy of living by developing the practice and support for clubs in difficulty, setting up a different model for the high level and organization of major events, starting with the second Roland-Garros of the Covid era still scheduled for May 2021.
Even though she is one of the leaders who count and intends to see more women take on responsibilities in sport and elsewhere, the winner of the Orange Bowl (14 Year Old World Championship) in 1992, is not a " ayatollah of feminization ”.
Each must be able to apply, then merit and competence go beyond any positive discrimination.
"Claiming equal treatment is not feminism", breathes Gramblat.
Despite the missed appointment with the government of Emmanuel Macron, the lawyer does not see the former magistrate at the Court of Auditors anchoring herself on the political court when she changes cellars.
“In ten or fifteen years, I imagine him leading a big company of the CAC 40 rather than being minister or prime minister, he anticipates.
Her passion really had to tickle her for her to leave the corporate world… ”