A French cross-company mentoring programme modelled on the UK’s FTSE 100 Cross-Company Mentoring Programme

is gathering momentum, fuelled by new government legislation.

In January, President Sarkozy announced that French listed companies will be subject to quotas unless they increase the representation (currently 8 per cent) of women on conseils d’administration (boards).

The programme, Board- Women Partners, was set up by Marie-Claude Peyrache, a France Télécom executive, Véronique Préaux-Cobti, a director general in Diafora and Anne Bouverot, a mentee on the British programme. To date, 19 presidents from the following organisations have committed to act as mentors: Accor, Adecco, Axa, BNP Paribas, BPCE, Generali France, SNCF, Lafarge, Société générale, La Poste, Sodexo, McKinsey & Co, Total, Plastic Omnium, Unibail-Rodamco, France Télécom Orange, Rhodia, GDF, Suez and Sanofi-Aventis.

The French programme is seen as a significant intervention – both Peyrache and Préaux-Cobti have been awarded the Légion d’honneur.

Bertrand Collomb, president of Lafarge and a member of the UN Panel on Gender Equality, is playing a lead role in the French programme. He attended the FTSE 100 Cross-Company Mentoring Programme’s UK Colloquium at the Stock Exchange in May 2008 alongside one of the UK mentors, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart.

Peninah Thomson, partner at Praesta and co-founder/director of the UK programme said: “We’re proud to have been able to make a positive contribution to the design and operation of the French programme. We share the same goal: to enable women with intelligence of both kinds (IQ and EQ), who are able, competent, experienced, committed to civil values, possessed of vision and good judgement, to contribute to the strategic decision-making process alongside their male colleagues on the boards of major companies.”

See “Step this way”, Coaching at Work, vol 3, issue 6 www.coaching-at-work.com/2008/11/03/step-this-way)

Volume 5, Issue 2