PWN Paris Congress 2021 - Speakers

(Version française ici)

Elisabeth Moreno

Minister for Gender Equality, Diversity and Equal Opportunities reporting to the Prime Minister

Born in Tarrafal, Cape Verde, Élisabeth Moreno is the Minister for Gender Equality, Diversity and Equal Opportunities reporting to the Prime Minister. With a Master’s degree in Business Law from the Paris-Est Créteil University as well as a double Executive MBA from ESSEC and the Mannheim Business School in Germany, she rounded off her education and professional training at the National School of Magistrates to qualify as judge at the Tribunal de Commerce. Élisabeth Moreno has spent most of her professional career in business. In 1990, she cofounded a company specialising in thermal rehabilitation that she managed for seven years before making a shift and joining France Télécom to manage the SME-SMI division for the southern region of Paris. In 2000, she joined the Dell group where, for twelve years, she held successive positions until she became commercial director in charge of strategic accounts for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Following on from this experience, she joined the Lenovo Group in 2012, where she was responsible for key accounts in southern Europe before extending this responsibility to cover the Europe, Middle East and Africa region in 2015. A year later, she was appointed Chairman and CEO of the French subsidiary of the IT group. As a socially-conscious woman, she also invests her time in associations focusing on education, inclusion and professional diversity. On 6 July 2020, she was appointed by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, as minister for Gender Equality, Diversity and Equal Opportunities, reporting to the Prime Minister.

Marc-Henri Bernard

Group Human Resources Director - Rémy Cointreau

Board member of ANDRH

Marc-Henri Bernard is an HR professional who is working for over 30 years in various international groups (Essilor International, Takeda Pharmaceutical, PepsiCo, Christofle).

Rémy Cointreau's HRD for 6 years, he has endeavored to promote employee engagement while respecting strong values. Diversity and inclusion are driving forces for him.

A former high-level athlete, he has more than one hundred selections for the French Handball Team.

Holder of a Postgraduate degree in Business Law, in Management and in Human Resources, he is also certified in Coaching.

Cécile Bernheim

PWN Paris Advisory Board member

Past President of PWN Paris

President of S2E Partners

Cécile Bernheim is a seasoned senior business executive with solid blue-chip FMCG background and international experience in highly competitive and changing environments. 

Cecile is passionate about people development and brings to Professional Women’s Network Paris her professional skills combined with her high level of emotional intelligence to advance female leadership and expand the aura of PWN in the French ecosystem. 

Cécile recently founded S2E Partners a strategy consultancy firm. She helps companies in transforming their strategic vision into concrete and realistic action plans and achieving their profitable growth ambition.

Previously she spent over 20 years with The Coca-Cola Company in General Management, Strategy and Commercial roles. Cécile also acted as Strategy Consultant with Bain & Cie; she started her career in R&D in the Pharmaceutical industry.

Cécile is a qualified biologist and pharmacist, holding an MBA from IMD in Lausanne. She is certified as “Non Executive Director” (ESSEC).

Yaël Braun-Pivet 

President of the Law Commission, Deputy of Yvelines (5th constituency)

Born in Nancy (France) on December 9, 1970, Yaël Braun-Pivet was elected member of the French National Assembly in the 5th district of the Yvelines department in June 2017. She belongs to the La République en Marche party. She is President of the Law Commission. She previously worked as a criminal lawyer at the Paris Bar and the Hauts-de-Seine bar until 2003. After living a few years in Asia and Portugal, she moved back to the Yvelines department and became an active member of the Restos du Cœur charity association. There, she ran a welcome center and led the development of a new center. She was also in charge of the association’s « Access to justice » network in the departement and of its « Access to social rights » network on the national level.

Thierry Blandinières

Managing Director InVivo 

Aged 61, 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 industry 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 Chairman 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 and was elected Entrepreneur of the Year.

He joined the InVivo group in October 2013 as CEO. On his arrival, he initiated the strategic project "2025 by InVivo", 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 of fostering the emergence of the third way of agriculture to support food transition.

The Covid-19 health crisis requires it to put in place in the very short term actions essential to maintaining the food chain. At the same time, he is carrying out a strategic reflection to build the group's post-crisis Covid-19 project, acceleration of the 2030 project.

Nadine Castellani

PWN Global co-President

Nadine draws her strength from an atypical and varied career in a large administration and then in a CAC40 group in telecommunications, where she was able to accompany the major transformations of customer relations towards digital, in a context combining strong growth and competition. She has held positions of responsibility in sales, marketing, then Director of Communications for a territory, and finally, Director of Innovation and Startup Communications Strategy in France where she founded the Femmes Entrepreneuses program with Orange.

Currently an independent director, she is a board member of the scale-up ALG, and of the NGO Making Waves.

Her constant commitment to society has enriched her professional and associative experiences. Member of PWN for more than 10 years, Nadine was co-president and then president of PWN Lyon for 3 years before being elected co-president of PWN Global last June.

She wishes to raise the stakes of equity and balance between women and men in the head management that build the world of today and tomorrow.

Rosalie Lacombe-Ribault 

Marketing, Communication and Partnerships Director, Talan group

Rosalie Lacombe-Ribault is Marketing, Communication and Partnerships Director of Talan, an innovation and transformation consulting group. A graduate of Neoma Business School, she began her career with the Mars group. She then joined Bouygues Telecom where she held various positions in operational and strategic marketing on innovative service launches. In 2014, she became head of Marketing France and Benelux for Lithium Technologies, an American start-up offering a customer engagement solution, before joining Talan's Comex in 2016.  

Isabelle Lamothe

VP Practice People & Organization - Cap Gemini Invent

After studying Human Resources management at Ciffop and communication at HEC, Isabelle Lamothe has been working in the field of Human Resources consulting for over 20 years.

For the past 3 years, Isabelle has been in charge of the "People & Organization" entity at Capgemini Invent, which assists clients in all aspects of human transformation. More recently, Isabelle has taken a strong interest in the new post-Covid ways of working, piloting projects on this topic for her clients, leading a global think tank on the New Working Paradigm and participating in several surveys on the subject with the CRI (Capgemini Research Institute), notably the "Future of Work" study.

At the same time, Isabelle is a tutor for a Master degree in International Human Resources Management and has written several books, including "L'Eternité en héritage" on the resilience of organizations.

Margaret Milan

President PWN Paris 2001-2005, PWN Europe 2005-2006 - President Deventis Conseil

Margaret is one of the founding Members of PWN which she joined in 2001. With Avivah Wittenberg Cox and Marie-Claude Peyrache, the team led the network to become a respected voice for gender balance federating over 4000 members in local networks across Europe.  

Margaret is also co-author with Marie-Cristine Maheas of the book “Gender Balance: when men step up”.

 Margaret is the founder of Eveil & Jeux (now Oxybul), an innovative brand for educational toys and a pioneer of e-commerce in France. After the sale of Evil & Jeux to the Fnac, and then to ID Group, Margaret left the company in 2010. She now advises family owned mid-cap companies in the consumer sector. 

Margaret holds an engineering degree from Warwick University (UK) and an MBA from Harvard. She was awarded the Legion d’honneur in 2009.

Virginia Otel

PWN Global co-President

Virginia Oțel is a senior executive with more than 25 years experience in the financial sector in Romania, gaining expertise in general management, business development, marketing, corporate communication, human resource management in various financial institutions, such as venture capital fund, securities trading & investment banking, banking, and leasing. She has served in the boards of the financial institutions she worked for. Virginia Otel participated in many local and international conferences and seminars as speaker and panelist.

Ms. Otel has been working since the end of 2006 within Garanti BBVA Group Romania, currently holding the positions of Deputy General Manager of Garanti BBVA Leasing and Communication Leader of Garanti BBVA Group Romania. Her professional course included Unicredit Bank Romania, Demir Securities, and Romanian-American Enterprise Fund.  In 1994, she was visiting faculty member at Hamline University din St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.

Virginia graduated from the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest with a Bachelor degree in Economic Cybernetics. She completed her post–graduate studies in Management and Public Administration with the National School of Political and Administrative Studies of Bucharest in 1992.  The following year, she earned a Master’s degree in Management and Public Administration from Liverpool University, UK, as a Chevening Scholar. She became an Alumna of the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies in 1994 and attended the International Relations Summer School organized by the International University Institute of Luxembourg in the same year. Ms. Otel graduated the Executive MBA with the Romanian-American Postgraduate School of Business in cooperation with the University of Washington, USA, in 1999.  In 2013, she attended the Aspen Seminar for Leaders and became a Fellow of Aspen Institute Romania.

Virginia has dedicated her energy, efforts, and time to community development by becoming a founding member of the Foundation for Community Development of Romania in 1994. She has been also serving as a Board member of the Foundation for the Development of Civil Society (FDSC) since 2002. Since February 2013, Virginia has been a member of the Romanian Business Leaders Foundation, being involved in the “Antreprenoria” project. In March 2021, Virginia became a Board Member of the Artic Foundation, dedicated to support environmental sustainability and social entrepreneurship.

Virginia joined the Professional Women’s Network (PWN) Romania in November 2011, being involved in the “Mentoring” and “Women on Boards” pillars developed by the association. In 2014, she was elected Vice President “Women on Boards”and in 2016 President of PWN Romania, respectively. At the end of June 2021, Virginia was elected Co-President of PWN Global.  

Pascale Parraud-Apparu

Partner -  Emeric Lepoutre & Partners

Pascale Parraud-Apparu est Associée du Cabinet Emeric Lepoutre & Partners.

Depuis 15 ans, elle développe une expertise des meilleures pratiques de gouvernance et de diversité en Entreprise.

Elle intervient régulièrement sur les sujets de gouvernance dans un environnement global complexe et conseille des sociétés cotées et non-cotées, publiques et privées, familiales ou non, en France et en Europe.

Pascale apporte ainsi une double spécialisation : Conseil en Gouvernance et Conseil en Recherche de dirigeants & d’administrateurs indépendants, majoritairement des profils féminins.

De 2011 à 2017, elle fut Associée-Fondateur de TM Partenaires, Cabinet dédié à la Gouvernance d’Entreprise, et auparavant Consultante au sein du leader britannique Whitehead Mann Plc, puis de l’américain Korn/Ferry International.

Elle a occupé différentes responsabilités au sein de Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Cabinet d’Avocats américain spécialisé en droit international des affaires.

Pascale a commencé sa carrière au Consulat Français de Chicago.

Marie-Claude Peyrache

EPWN Paris President 2004-2009 - Independent Public Relations and Communications Professional

Marie-Claude Peyrache worked for France Telecom/Orange where she directed several business divisions, in France and abroad. She was the first woman to join France Telecom’s Executive Committee as senior VP communications in 1994.

She launched the first internal women’s network at the end of the 90’s

She was President of European Professional Women Network-Paris and VP Corporate Affairs at the Europe level from 2004 to 2009.

She launched along with Véronique Préaux Cobti, in France, the program of cross mentoring BoardWomenPartners. This program gathered 40 CEOs of big enterprises and more than 100 women to allow women to join boards.

Fanny Picard

Founder and CEO Alter Equity

Fanny Picard is the Founding Partner of Alter Equity, the first French private equity fund committed towards sustainable growth. Alter Equity now manages 2 early-growth funds and 15 investments. These startups have avoided the emission of 2,4 million Tons of CO2 since the fund’s investment, which is huge, accounting for 0,5% of France’s yearly emissions.

Fanny Picard has previously been Managing Director, head of Investments of Wendel as well as Director of Corporate development of the Danone group for Western Europe and North America. She started her professional life in mergers & acquisitions at Rothschild & Co.

Nathalie Pilhes

President of 2GAP and Administration Moderne

Nathalie PILHES is Senior high-ranking Civil servant. She is now Delegate for the national plan “Women, peace and security” at the Ministry of Interior and has been Delegate for Cooperation on Radicalization, President of Expertise France, Interministerial Delegate for international technical cooperation (Prime Minister’s Office), Deputy Ambassador Interministerial Delegate for the Mediterranean, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development, General Secretary of the Interministerial Delegation for the Mediterranean, (Prime Minister’s Office), Deputy Secretary General of the Interministerial Committee for the Prevention of Delinquency. She began her career at the Ministry of Defence.

Ms. Pilhes has long experience on women rights. She was Deputy Mayor in Paris in charge of Women's Rights (2001 to 2008). She chairs “Gender and Governance Action Platform” (2GAP) and « Modern Administration » (interministerial association of the female high-ranking civil servents). She chaired the Women Assembly of Paris-Ile de France, and in 2012, she wrote a book entitled "Women-men : finally equal?", in order to provide the government and public authorities a comprehensive public policy on gender equality in 111 concrete proposals.

Marie-Pierre Rixain

Députée (LREM) de la quatrième circonscription de l’Essonne

Présidente de la Délégation aux droits des femmes et à l’égalité des chances entre les hommes et les femmes

Valérie Rocoplan

Founder & CEO Talentis

Valerie ROCOPLAN is the founder and CEO of Talentis, a coaching company, which she founded in 2003 after a 15-year career in Marketing at major international groups. Certified executive coach, Valerie Rocoplan has now 15 years of experience in one-to-one coaching, team coaching, change management and gender diversity. Willing to never stop learning, she participates each year in a training, from coaching tool to more personal development approaches such as mindfulness.

Valerie Rocoplan oversees Talentis team and focuses her energy in the design and deployment of leadership development programs adapted to the new challenges of organizations. Convinced that digital revolution impacts leadership and collaboration, she is passionate about every aspect of management innovation. Enthusiastic and committed entrepreneur, Valerie Rocoplan is recognized for the quality of partnership she and her team build with every interlocutor of the company. She is the author of “Oser Etre la Chef” (Broché 2009).

Ariane Thomas

Global Tech Director of Sustainability - Groupe L’Oréal

Ariane is Global Tech Director of Sustainability for the L’Oréal Group, leading sustainability strategy and roadmaps for the full IT & Tech value chain.

Prior to this, she was heading the Strategic Development for L’Oréal Group’s Operations, providing the Group with a forward-looking view on all matters that can impact our operations. Before she focused on strategic developments for environment, health and safety after leading the Group’s Environment Department 2008 and creating the responsible sourcing program for the group 2005. Topics such as CO2 emissions reduction, waste reduction, water conservation, circular economy, resource efficiency and sustainability have been her day-to-day occupation over the last 20 years. And since 2015, the range of topics has only increased to amongst others the Sustainable Development Goals, ‘the factory of the future’, artificial intelligence and machine learning…

Beyond my responsibilities at L’Oréal, I have been and I am still active in a number of associations and organisations dealing with transversal subjects: ILEC in France and the European Brands Association (AIM), FEBEA (beauty industry), AFEP, MEDEF, France Industrie, Global Compact and CSR Europe and member of the High Level "Industry 2030 " EU Roundtable.

Martine Van Went

Founder & CEO of amv talents, Business Angel, PWN Paris President 2013-2015

After 15 years working in marketing in banks, she creates in 1989 her own company amv talents : training and coaching for team and managers, leaders, executive committees about behavior and posture in professional situations.

From 2006 active member in PWN Paris, she was in charge of the mentoring group during 5 years, VP women on board, during 2 years co-president of PWN Paris and then co-leader of women in transition group.

She mentors, since several years, young entrepreneurs for the success of their project, adults building their professional project or who want to change their career.

Today she is specialized on coaching for people in career transition and she is Business angel.

Avivah Winttenberg-Cox

Founder of PWN and CEO 20-FIRST

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox is a global expert on all things gender balance. She is the CEO of 20-first, a global consulting firm working with companies interested in capturing the competitive advantage of gender, nationality, and generational balance.

Her ground-breaking thought leadership is accessible through several seminal books and regular contributions to Harvard Business Review and Forbes. She’s done several TEDx talks, has been recognized by ELLE Magazine as one of the Top 40 Women Leading Change and was recently celebrated by PWN Global with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Gender Balanced Leadership. Her book, Why Women Mean Business, was awarded the MANPOWER Best Book of the Year Prize.