Anne Lauvergeon (born 2 August 1959) is a French businesswoman who served as CEO of Areva from 2001 until 2011. According to The Wall Street Journal, she is known internationally as one of the most prominent defenders of nuclear power.
Early life and education
Lauvergeon was born into a middle-class family in Dijon, Côte-d'Or; her father taught history and her mother was a social worker. Her grandfather was mayor of a village in Burgundy. She later grew up in Orléans, where her father became a professor of geography.
Lauvergeon attended the École normale de jeunes filles to pass the Agrégation in physics. Then she entered the Corps des Mines. In 1983 she enrolled in her first vocational course with the Corps de Mines, in the iron and steel industry, at Usinor. A second vocational course, in 1984, took place with the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique, where she studied chemical safety in Europe.
Career
Early beginnings
From 1985 to 1988, Lauvergeon was with the l'Inspection générale des carrières (IGC). In 1990, she was placed in charge of the mission for the international economy and foreign trade by French President François Mitterrand. The following year, she became assistant secretary-general. She was then named "sherpa", i.e. personal representative to the president, and responsible for preparing international meetings such as the G7 summit.
In 1995, Lauvergeon joined the banking sector, and became a managing partner of Lazard; she was the only woman partner at the firm. While at Lazard, she spent several months at the investment bank's New York office. In late 1996, she left the firm after difficulties with Édouard Stern; according to media reports at the time, Stern had particularly taken exception to an invitation that Lauvergeon received to join the board of French aluminium company Pechiney.
In March 1997, Lauvergeon was appointed general director of Alcatel, before becoming part of the group's executive committee. In that capacity, she was responsible for international activities and the company's industrial shareholdings in the energy and nuclear fields.
Career at Areva
In June 1999 Lauvergeon was appointed CEO of the group Cogema, succeeding Jean Syrota, who resigned under pressure from The Greens. In July 2001, she merged Cogema, Framatome and other companies to create Areva. At the head of the new company, she became a member of the small circle of women directing international corporations; in September 2002, daily economic newspaper Les Échos uncovered a report from the French Court of Auditors, citing Lauvergeon's compensation (salary of €305,000 with a bonus of €122,000) and "golden parachute" of two years' wages.
In 2004, Lauvergeon resisted a request from Nicolas Sarkozy, then finance minister, to help bail out French transport and energy company Alstom. When Alstom's leadership announced plans in 2008 to create a heavy-engineering conglomerate by combining Alstom and Areva in a single entity, Lauvergeon reiterated her opposition.
Under Lauvergeon, Areva instead developed into a one-stop shop for nuclear energy. The company became one of the world's top uranium producers and mining accounted for 12 per cent of its 2010 revenue. On 10 July 2008 in the French economic paper Challenges, she stated: "Uranium is a main part of our success. Our model is... Nespresso: we sell coffee machines and the coffee that fits them. And coffee is very profitable. So in China, we sold two nuclear islands, plus 35% of our uranium production. This is our integrated business model".
Towards the end of 2006, Areva encountered difficulties with its new European Pressurized Reactor and announced an expected delay of eighteen months to three years for its delivery, according to the French daily newspaper La Tribune. The reactor is to be the first of its kind in Finland. The delay may cost €700 million. Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, she traveled frequently to Japan and spoke out in regular television appearances in support of nuclear power.
In addition to her role at Areva, Lauvergeon was part of other political and business initiatives. In 2001, France's Minister of Science Roger-Gérard Schwartzenberg chose her to chair the "national contest of assistance the creation of companies of innovating technologies". In June 2010 Lauvergeon attended the Bilderberg conference in Sitges, Spain.