Societe Generale: Renewals and appointments of board members proposed to the General Meeting to be held on 20 May 2025
RENEWALS AND APPOINTMENTS OF BOARD MEMBERS PROPOSED TO THE GENERAL MEETING TO BE HELD ON 20 MAY 2025
Press release
Paris, 12 March 2025
The Board of Directors of Societe Generale, upon the proposal of the Nomination and Corporate Governance Committee, approved the proposed renewals and appointments of board members ahead of the Shareholders’ General Meeting to be held on 20 May 2025.
The Board of Directors invites the General Meeting to be held on 20 May 2025 to vote to replace two female directors (Mrs Lubomira Rochet, resigning since 12 September 2024, and Mrs Alexandra Schaapveld, end of her third term as an independent director) and to renew three male directors (Mr. William Connelly, Mr. Henri Poupart-Lafarge and Mr. Sébastien Wetter).
Mrs Ingrid-Helen Arnold will be proposed for her first term as an independent Director. Aged 56 and of German nationality, Mrs Ingrid-Helen Arnold will bring to the Board sound expertise in information systems and digital transformations. Mrs. Ingrid-Helen Arnold had a long career at SAP SE, from 1996 to 2021, where she was Chief Information Officer and member of the Global Management Committee. She was also Head of Digital Transformation (Chief Digital Officer) and member of the Executive Committee of Südzucker between 2021 and 2024 and then interim CEO of KAKO-Elektro since June 2024. Mrs Ingrid-Helen Arnold is a Director of TUI and was a Director of Heineken.
Mr Olivier Klein will be proposed for his first term as an independent Director. Aged 67 and of French nationality, Mr Olivier Klein will bring to the Board renowned expertise in retail banking and an in-depth knowledge of macroeconomic issues. He is currently Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of Lazard Frères Banque, an entity which covers the support functions for investment banking (Lazard Frères) and for asset management (Lazard Frères Gestion). Mr Olivier Klein was Chief Executive Officer of BRED for 10 years and a member of the management board of BPCE in charge of commercial banking (supervision of the Banques Populaires and Caisses d’Epargne networks). From 2019 to 2023, he was a member of the supervisory board and risk committee of group BPCE. He teaches financial macroeconomics and monetary policy at HEC.
Mr William Connelly, an independent Board member since 2017, Chairman of the Risk Committee since 2020 and member of the Nomination and Corporate Governance Committee since 2017, will be proposed for a third term as a Director. Aged 67 and of French nationality, Mr William Connelly brings to the Board his recognised financial experience, particularly in investment banking, insurance and asset management, an international vision and his experience in the management of large groups. His attendance rate at Board and Committees meetings is 100%.
Mr Henri Poupart-Lafarge, independent Director since 2021 and Chairman of the Nomination and Corporate Governance Committee since 2023, will be proposed for a second term as a Director. Aged 55 and of French nationality, Mr Henri Poupart-Lafarge has had a long career at Alstom, of which he has been Chief Executive Officer since June 2024, after having been Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from 2016 to June 2024. He brings to the Board exceptional experience in the management of a large international group and the vision of corporate clients. His attendance rate at Board meetings has averaged 89% since the beginning of his term of office, and 93% on average for the Nomination and Corporate Governance Committees.
Furthermore, the term of office of Mr Sébastien Wetter, Director representing employee shareholders, expires in 2025. The employee shareholders, solicited during the second half of 2024 by means of a single election, propose to renew him, together with Mrs Emmanuelle Pételle as a replacement. Mrs Emmanuelle Pételle is President of ASSACT, association of employee shareholders of Societe Generale. The Board of Directors, on the proposal of the Nomination and Corportate Government Committee, has decided to approve this renewal proposal. Mr Sébastien Wetter has been working for 27 years as an employee at Societe Generale. This experience covers several functions in retail and investment banking related to business development and client satisfaction. He also held the position of Secretary General of the Group’s General Inspection and Audit Division. He was Global Chief Operating Officer in the Financial Institutions Sales Department and banker of major international accounts. He was appointed for the first time as a Director representing Societe Generale’s employee shareholders at the end of the Shareholders’ Meeting of 18 May 2021. Since 2023, he has been a member of the Audit and Internal Control Committee.
If the General Meeting approves these proposals, the Board of Directors will comprise 42% women (5/12), 92% independent Directors (11/12) excluding the three Directors representing employees, and 40% Directors who are foreign nationals (out of the 15 Directors sitting on the Board of Directors, seven nationalities are represented, including Directors with several nationalities).
The Board has ensured that, with this composition, it will have all the necessary skills to function properly, to carry out its tasks of defining the strategy of the Societe Generale group and monitoring its implementation.
Press Contacts:
Jean-Baptiste Froville_+33 1 58 98 68 00_ jean-baptiste.froville@socgen.com
Fanny Rouby_+33 1 57 29 11 12_ fanny.rouby@socgen.com
Biographies
Ingrid-Helen ARNOLD
Born on 5 October 1968, German
Graduated from the University of Applied Sciences Ludwigshafen in 1997 with a master’s degree in economics. She began her career at SAP SE in 1996, where she held various responsibilities related to innovation and digital transformation. In 2014, she was appointed Chief Information Officer and Business Processes and extended Member of the SAP Group Executive Committee. From 2016 to April 2021, she was President of SAP Business Data Network Group in Palo Alto (United States) and SAP SE Walldorf (Germany). In 2021, she joined the Südzucker Group as Chief Digital Officer and Information technology and member of the Group’s Executive Committee. She is Chief Executive Officer of KAKO GmbH since June 2024. She was a member of the Supervisory Board and a member of the Heineken Group Audit Committee from 2019 to 2023. She is a member of the TUI Group Supervisory Board since 2020.
Olivier KLEIN
Born on 15 June 1957, French
Graduated from the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in 1978 with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, from the National School of Statistics and Economic Administration (ENSAE) in 1980, and from HEC’s graduate course in Finance in 1985. He began his career at the BFCE in 1985 and served as manager of the Foreign Exchange and Rate Risk Management Advisory Department, then as Director of the BFCE’s Investment Bank, and finally as Regional Director of its corporate bank. He joined the Caisse d’Epargne Group in 1998 and was Chairman of the Executive Board of the Caisse d’Epargne Ile-de-France Ouest from 2000 to 2007 and then of the Caisse d’Epargne Rhône-Alpes from 2007 to 2009. In January 2010, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Commercial Banking and Insurance of the BPCE Group until September 2012. He was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the BRED Group from October 2012 to May 2023. He was a Member of the Supervisory Board of BPCE and its Risk Committee between 2019 and May 2023. He is Chief Executive Officer of Lazard Frères Banque SA and Managing Partner since September 2023. Since 1986, He is teaching macroeconomics and monetary policy at HEC. He is a director of Rexécode since 2018.
William CONNELLY
Born on 3 February 1958, French
William Connelly is a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington (US). From 1980 to 1990, he worked as a banker at Chase Manhattan Bank in the US, Spain and the United Kingdom. From 1990 to 1999, he worked at Barings and later at ING Barings as Head of Mergers and Acquisitions in Spain, following which he was appointed Head of Corporate Finance for Western Europe. From 1999 to 2016, he was responsible for various positions in the Investment Banking Division at ING Bank NV (Netherlands). His last positions were Global Head of Corporate and Investment Banking and member of the Executive Committee, as well as Chief Executive Officer of ING Real Estate BV (ING Bank subsidiary).
Henri Poupart-Lafarge
Born on 10 April 1969, French
Henri Poupart-Lafarge is a graduate of France’s École Polytechnique, École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and of Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He began his career in 1992 at the World Bank in Washington D.C. before moving to the French Ministry of the Economy and Finance in 1994. He joined Alstom in 1998 as Head of Investor Relations and was in charge of Management Control. In 2000, he was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Transmission and Distribution at Alstom, a position he held until 2004. He was Chief Financial Officer of Alstom from 2004 until 2010, and became President of Alstom Grid from 2010 to 2011. On 4 July 2011, he became Chairman of Alstom Transport, before being appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in February 2016, a position he held until June 2024. Since then, he has been Chief Executive Officer and Director of Alstom.
Sébastien WETTER
Born on 10 July 1971, French
Sébastien Wetter holds a Master degree in Fundamental Physics and graduated from the Lyons Business School (EM Lyon). He began his career at Societe Generale in 1997 in the Strategy and Marketing Division of Societe Generale’s retail bank. Working in the Group’s Organisation Consulting Department from 2002, he performed a range of roles in the Corporate & Investment Banking arm and helped roll out the Group-wide participatory Innovation programme. As of the end of 2005, he joined the Commodities Market Department as Chief Operating Officer holding a global remit, before becoming Head of Business Development in 2008. From 2010 until 2014, he served as General Secretary in the Group’s General Inspection and Audit Division. In 2014, he joined the Sales Division of the Corporate & Investment Bank arm where he held a number of positions: Head of marketing for major French and international clients, then in 2016, Global Chief Operating Officer responsible for the sales teams covering financial institutions. From 2020 to December 2022, he has been a banker managing Societe Generale’s relationship with international financial institutions.
Societe Generale
Societe Generale is a top tier European Bank with more than 126,000 employees serving about 25 million clients in 65 countries across the world. We have been supporting the development of our economies for 160 years, providing our corporate, institutional, and individual clients with a wide array of value-added advisory and financial solutions. Our long-lasting and trusted relationships with the clients, our cutting-edge expertise, our unique innovation, our ESG capabilities and leading franchises are part of our DNA and serve our most essential objective – to deliver sustainable value creation for all our stakeholders.
The Group runs three complementary sets of businesses, embedding ESG offerings for all its clients:
- French Retail, Private Banking and Insurance, with leading retail bank SG and insurance franchise, premium private banking services, and the leading digital bank BoursoBank.
- Global Banking and Investor Solutions, a top tier wholesale bank offering tailored-made solutions with distinctive global leadership in equity derivatives, structured finance and ESG.
- Mobility, International Retail Banking and Financial Services, comprising well-established universal banks (in Czech Republic, Romania and several African countries), Ayvens (the new ALD I LeasePlan brand), a global player in sustainable mobility, as well as specialized financing activities.
Committed to building together with its clients a better and sustainable future, Societe Generale aims to be a leading partner in the environmental transition and sustainability overall. The Group is included in the principal socially responsible investment indices: DJSI (Europe), FTSE4Good (Global and Europe), Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index, Refinitiv Diversity and Inclusion Index, Euronext Vigeo (Europe and Eurozone), STOXX Global ESG Leaders indexes, and the MSCI Low Carbon Leaders Index (World and Europe).
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