Business
AAPA visits France’s unicorn DOCTOLIB
On January 12, the AAPA met with Doctolib founder Stanislas Niox-Chateau at the company headquarters in Levallois. Since founding Doctolib in 2013 at the age of 26, Mr Niox-Chateau has grown the company to 2800 employees that serves upwards of 80 million people in France, Germany and Italy. It is now the number one French unicorn company and has truly revolutionized French healthcare. Mr…
Lunch with Air France CEO
The AAPA was invited to lunch and a visit to the flight archives to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Air France at the company’s headquarters at Charles DeGaulle on Sept 29. We were joined at lunch by Anne Rigail, CEO of Air France, the first woman to hold this executive position. As a veteran of Air France dating back to 1996, Rigail had a lot to share with us about the business of flying.…
François Henri Pinault at Kering HQ
On June 14, we were invited to meet François-Henri Pinault, Chairman and CEO of Kering, one of the world's largest luxury groups, at the company headquarters in the 17th century Laennec Hospital building in rue de Sevres. FHP, as he is called, told us about his view of the future of luxury (he's aiming at Gen Z, while holding onto older clients who appreciate luxury's history), and he emphasized…
Freelancer seminar: avoiding payment delays
To help free-lance members develop a strategy for heading off such problems and for confronting them when they arise, the AAPA held a zoom conference on 22 March on recovering payments. Leading the discussion were Hans de Keijzer, Group Head of Organisation & Change – Policy Management at Euler Hermes Group, and Caroline Harrap, a co-founder of the Society of Freelance Journalists,…
AXA CEO Tells AAPA: Climate Change, healthcare Costs are Top Priorities
AXA CEO Thomas Buberl invited the AAPA to lunch at the company's headquarters around the corner from the Elysee Palace on January 10 for a broad on-the-record discussion dominated by the themes of instability and climate change. Buberl, who was appointed as the third CEO of the French-headquartered international financial services company, said he believes the US-China trade war and climate…
Air France-KLM boss Ben Smith talks planes, unions and greenhouse gas with the AAPA
Long lunches, long holidays, and myriad trades unions were all part of the steep learning curve facing Canadian Ben Smith when he took the helm of Air France-KLM in 2018, the affable 48-year-old told the Anglo-American Press Association. And he had to work hard on his French, he said during a wide-ranging discussion held in the offices of Bloomberg near the Paris Opera on Friday 17 January, as a…
Renault Chairman Talks Auto Alliances with AAPA
The future of the alliance between carmakers Renault and Nissan and Renault’s abortive attempt to link up with Fiat Chrysler were the main subjects discussed when Renault SA Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard met with a dozen AAPA members on July 18. Salvaging the Renault-Nissan alliance whose organization had descended into a “huge mess” under former Renault and Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn is crucial…
JCDecaux bosses talk Vélib, bus shelters, bundling, and the digital revolution
The two leading executives of JCDecaux, the global out-of-home (OOH) advertising company, held an on-the-record briefing at their Paris Headquarters for the Anglo-American Press Association of Paris. The executives are sons of the founder: Jean-Francois Decaux, aged 59, is the Co-CEO and Jean-Charles Decaux, aged 49, is the President of the Board, and the Co- General Director, Some topics…
Macron is no revolutionary but has given France a much-need makeover, says telecom tycoon Xavier Niel
President Emmanuel Macron has not revolutionised France but he has given the country a much-needed image makeover, telecoms billionaire Xavier Niel told the AAPA during a meeting on January 24. Niel met with the association at Station F, a huge start-up incubator housed in a former railway depot near the Seine river which Macron inaugurated a month after coming to power last year. Station F's…
PSA’s Car-Racing Boss Tavares Meets the AAPA
A dozen AAPA members now have a better grasp of CEO compensation, vehicle emissions standards, labor relations and how to pull a 200-year-old company from the brink of bankruptcy after meeting with Carlos Tavares, the fast-revving chief executive of Groupe PSA. Speaking at a relaxed breakfast at PSA’s Paris headquarters, Mr. Tavares revealed that he had been motivated by other factors than money…