Governance

Thierry Blandinières is a graduate of the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Nantes and holds an Executive MBA from the HEC. He began his career in the chemicals and cosmetics industry. He moved to the agribusiness when he joined L’Européenne de gastronomie (Labeyrie/ Rougier) in 1991. He then went on to work for Madrange where he was appointed Deputy Chief Executive Officer in 1998.

In 2003, he was appointed CEO of Delpeyrat Comtesse du Barry, a subsidiary of the Maïsadour Group (an agri-food cooperative in the Landes region) and contributed to its recovery. In 2008, he was appointed CEO of the Maïsadour Group.

He joined the InVivo group in October 2013 as CEO. He initiated the strategic project 2025 by InVivo when he joined the company, thus starting a profound transformation of the group. He subsequently embarked upon the co-creation of the 2030 by InVivo plan, which was adopted in 2019 with the ambition to support the agricultural transition and transform the French Farm.

Thierry Blandinières has also actively worked to turn his group into a société à mission. This change in status was ratified by the Union InVivo Board of Directors in October 2020.

At the start of 2021, InVivo entered into exclusive negotiations with Soufflet, a family-owned agrifood group. In December 2021, the merger was signed between these two international French groups, allowing them to create a pillar of French food sovereignty.

Ewa Brandt is the Global CSR officer of IPSOS, the French global market and opinion specialist, present in 90 countries, with 18,000 employees and a turnover of 1.783MEUR.

A Sciences Po Paris graduate (Economy & Finance), Ewa Brandt attended the HEC Executive Education in 2010 and the HEC Executive Coaching in 2017.

She started her career in Finance as the CFO of CEDROM Technologies in 1984. In 1988, she became CEO of SMG SA (a SIFO Group subsidiary) where she had worked for 7 years.

In the 90’s and 2000’s, she held several positions in the human resources area, as Human Resources Director: for Cap Gemini Group (1997-2005); then for the Crédit agricole Corporate and Investment Bank where she joins the executive committee (2005-2008); for Natixis – BPCE Group (2008-2010); for TDF Group – a European group expert in broadcasting and telecom networks ; and for Eurazeo – a listed investment company (2013- 2017).

After studying agriculture, Cédric Carpène took over the family farm. He is now a cereal farmer in the Gers (32) and has 200 hectares of crops. He manages two animal productions: cattle (110 heads) and organic eggs (12 000 laying hens).

Cédric Carpène is president of the Gers cooperative Val De Gascogne since 2016 and president of three trading companies (OGR, Lamothe, @xion): which represents a total of 420 employees; 480,000 tons collected and a turnover of 227MEUR.

A graduate of Montpellier SupAgro, she began her career with the Maïsadour agrifood cooperative group in 1993 where she spent almost twenty years. From manager of the “Agri Confiance” quality assurance pilot project, to SAP project manager, to business controller at MAS Seeds, she held a wide variety of positions that greatly enhanced her skills and expertise.

In 2003, she was called in as chief financial officer (CFO) to strengthen and revitalise Delpeyrat. Over the next ten years, Maha Fournier gained experience that she considers to be the foundation of her career. In 2008, Maha Fournier joined the Executive Board as Director of external development. In 2014, in parallel with her duties, she attended the HEC Executive MBA.

In 2015, she took up the position of CFO of InVivo. On 1 January 2022, she became chief executive officer in charge of Finance, IT, Legal and M&A for the entire InVivo group. This appointment follows the significant enlargement of the financial scope with the acquisition of the Soufflet group finalised in December 2021.

Bertrand Hernu has been a farmer in the Hauts-de-France region for 30 years. Before that, he worked as a management consultant in an accounting firm.

He was president of the Unéal cooperative (Advitam group) for 14 years, from 2007 to 2021.

Marie-Amélie de Leusse is Chair of the Board of Directors of Rémy Cointreau since 21 July 2022.

She is also Deputy Chief Executive of the family holding company, Andromède, Rémy Cointreau’s principal shareholder.

After graduating from the ESCP-EAP business school, Marie-Amélie de Leusse began her career at Société Générale Investment Banking in London before joining NM Rothschild & Sons, where she held a number of positions in the capital goods team working on mergers and acquisitions. Between 2010 and 2016, she held a number of roles within Rémy Cointreau’s finance team, first in Paris and subsequently in Singapore.

Xavier Niel is the founder and majority shareholder of Iliad.

A self-taught entrepreneur, he has worked in the Internet and telecommunications industry since the late 1980s. In 1993 he founded France’s first ISP, and in 1999 he created Free, France’s first free-access ISP.

He invented Triple Play and launched the Freebox in 2002 – a unique, state-of-the-art, multiservices box combining broadband Internet with telephony and television.

In 2013, Xavier founded 42, a tuition-free coding school based on peer-to-peer learning. Since then, the 42 school in Paris was named best coding school in the world and over 40 schools have opened around the world, training 15,000 students.

In 2017, he launched Station F, the world’s largest start-up campus, which hosts a thousand start-ups in a former 34,000 sq.m railway station in Paris.

Since 2010, Xavier has been the joint controlling shareholder of the newspaper Le Monde and the magazines Télérama, Courrier International and L’Obs.

Matthieu Pigasse has developed, as a mergers and acquisitions banker, a unique financial expertise over the last twenty years. He has worked on the largest M&A transactions worldwide and on the largest sovereign debt restructurings, including Argentina, Greece and Ukraine. During his career, Matthieu advised a large number of clients active in the digital space and the music industry.

Moreover, Matthieu Pigasse is also the Chairman (Président) of Combat Media, of which he owns 100% of the share capital. Through his personal investments, he developed a deep understanding of the media and music sectors. In 2009, he purchased the monthly magazine Les Inrockuptibles of which he is chairman of the Board of Directors. Along with Pierre Bergé and Xavier Niel, Matthieu Pigasse became co-owner of Le Monde Group (which controls the daily newspaper, its digital editions, and various magazines) in 2010 and of the French weekly magazine L’Obs in 2014. In 2012, he launched the French edition of the “Huffington Post” website. In 2015, he acquired Radio Nova. In 2017 he became shareholder of Rock en Seine alongside AEG Presents and invested in Rough Trade alongside Beggars Group.

Matthieu Pigasse is one of the founders and one of the main shareholders of the first two SPACs created in France with Mediawan and 2MX Organic.

Matthieu Pigasse started his career as the financial and industrial advisor to the French Minister of Economy and Finance, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, from 1997 to 1999, before joining, one year later, Laurent Fabius’ cabinet, then Minister of Economy and Finance, as Chief of Staff. As a former Chief of Staff of the French Minister of Economy and Finance, Matthieu Pigasse has an intimate knowledge of the public sector as well as the European regulations. He graduated from Ecole Nationale d’Administration.

A graduate of the ICL Lyon (business school) in international management, Bertrand Relave has been CEO of the Eurea cooperative group since 2008.

Bertrand Relave has been working in the garden center sector for 30 years. In 1993, he became the development manager of Vive le Jardin (Jardiland group) for France, Italy and Switzerland. He then took over the development and operational management of the Côté Nature garden center chain. At the same time, he oversaw the CRJ purchasing center (for Côté Nature, Delbard and Saisons & Jardins). He then joined Eurea to manage the group’s Gamm Vert stores and the Agri Sud Est agricultural trading company.

Founder and majority shareholder of the Imanes, HGZ (Holding Groupe Zouari) and SDH (Soft Discount Holding) groups.

After financial management studies, Soraya Zouari founded, in 1998, with her husband MoezAlexandre Zouari, the IMANES group, specializing in local, precision and tailor-made trade. She invests daily in the strategy – focused on permanent innovation to transform, digitize and develop this trade -, the business development and diversification. The Imanes group has now become a key player in mass distribution in France.

In 2018, the Imanes group, which has 500 stores with well-known French brands such as Franprix, Monoprix, Monop’, launched the “4” store, an innovative and avant-garde “phygital” concept (the best of both physical and digital worlds), which won the LSA 2018 Innovation and New York NRF 2019 Awards.

In 2019, Imanes undertakes a series of acquisitions. First of all, the Imanes group becomes the reference shareholder with the acquisition of 47% of Picard, the French leader in frozen foods, which operates a network of 1,100 stores and which is one of the emblematic brands preferred by the French people.

In 2022, Imanes is expanding its territory to nonfood with two major discount acquisitions with the ambition of becoming the leader in this sector: the French No. 1 in stock clearance Stokomani and the Maxi Bazar brand, a Franco- Swiss network.

Louis Molis has been Deputy Director within the Large Cap team of Bpifrance Capital Développement since 2019. He began his career in entrepreneurship in 2007 by founding / co-founding two startups, then he joined the investment team Buyout of Bridgepoint Capital in 2011, and JCDecaux in 2014, as M&A Manager, then Group M&A and Development Director.

Louis monitors Bpifrance’s investment in Valéo, Arkema, Groupe Grimaud, Sendinblue, Malteries Soufflet, Almaviva and LV Overseas.

Lawyer (graduate of the Certificate of Aptitude for the Profession of Lawyer), Doctor in International Trade Law, Sylvia Morvan-Sourdille began her career in 2000 within the Law Firm of the French Conseil d’Etat and the Cour de Cassation, DEFRENOIS & LEVIS where she practiced for 5 years.

In 2005, she was appointed Legal Manager of the GONDRAND Frères Group, a transport freight forwarding company, to strengthen the Group’s legal culture.

In 2009, she joined the InVivo group as Legal and Tax Director. Over the following 14 years, in addition to her historic functions within the Group, Sylvia Morvan-Sourdille was entrusted with responsibility for the Internal Audit, Compliance and Insurance, Public Affairs and Public Financing and Partnerships departments.

On October 1, 2023, she was appointed General Secretary of the InVivo group in charge of the Governance of the Union InVivo and the InVivo Group, as well as Tax and Customs Affairs, Public Affairs, Financing and Partnerships as well as the Internal Audit, Compliance and Insurance.

Moreover, and since 2015, Sylvia Morvan-Sourdille has been an Arbitrator at the International Chamber of Paris