More than 1,200 billion euros in turnover concentrated under the same roof: a monumental room was needed, at the Palais d’Iéna, in Paris, to host, on March 16, the sixth edition of Top Afep. Organized by the French Association of Private Companies, this unique event brought together around forty of the most powerful CEOs in France.
Patrick Pouyanné (TotalEnergies), Xavier Huillard (Vinci), Catherine MacGregor (Engie), Florent Menegaux (Michelin), Jean-Paul Agon (L’Oréal), Frédéric Arnault (LVMH) or Sophie Bellon (Sodexo), all responded to the invitation from Patricia Barbizet, the president of Afep, to come and discuss with 300 hand-picked managers of SMEs or ETIs – mid-sized companies.
A precise ballet: at the precise time mentioned on their dance card, the lucky person sits at the table of the group they have asked to see and presents their product, their pitch or their request. In front of him, the big boss, flanked by two or three colleagues, no more, listens, questions, takes notes. Seven minutes later, the gong sounds: next!
Since the creation of this employer speed dating in 2018, Alexandre Bompard has not missed an edition. “None of these one-on-ones is like the previous one,” says the CEO of Carrefour between two sessions – he will hold around twenty of them. There, I saw someone who makes 700,000 euros in income. Right after, I ‘continues with another which weighs 200 million. Some of these entrepreneurs are already among our suppliers and want to change scale. Others have developed an innovation that they would like to test with us. There are those, finally, who are looking for an opinion or advice from me. For me, it’s a good way to capture how the group is perceived and what the current topics are in our ecosystem.” In jeans and without a tie, like most of his counterparts, Alexandre Bompard sums up the astonishing atmosphere that emanates from this Saturday morning, so inconsistent with the practices of the CAC40: “Nothing is formatted.”
Stimulating and bubbling
A stone’s throw away, Eric Vallat ends one of his interviews… with a selfie. “It’s a good vintage,” rejoices the CEO of Rémy Cointreau: out of the eight meetings that I have just completed, seven of them should provide food for discussion with our teams. We were presented with many agroecological solutions, with satellite, data… It’s very stimulating.”
Sabrina Soussan, the boss of Suez, agrees: “I sense a lot of excitement around the issues that concern us: biomethane, recycling, water desalination… In an industrial group like ours, it is natural to set up partnerships with suppliers. We already work with thousands of local SMEs. It’s a two-way exchange: they provide us with a technological building block, which we can then integrate into a more global offer to communities.”
French anchorage
Connecting with a “big guy”: Grégory Djiane, the president of Needle concept, in a dream. This Biarritz company with 35 employees and 2.5 million euros in turnover is the only French manufacturer of injection cannulas. For aesthetic medicine, its historical niche market. And tomorrow, for millions of vaccines, aims his boss, who discovers Top Afep. In his list: Sanofi, ArcelorMittal… and Seb, “because it is an example of industrial anchoring” in France.
“During Covid, we vaccinated the whole country without the slightest French needle, recalls this forty-something, who has just obtained 10 million euros from the France 2030 plan. The world leader is an American, Becton Dickinson. The others are Japanese , Indian or Chinese. We are in the process of building a new factory to develop this know-how locally.” Eric Baudry, from Intuis, an ETI specializing in heat pumps, came for Saint-Gobain and Engie. But not only that: “I was able to meet around twenty SMEs from our universe in three hours. In normal times, it would have taken me a month and a half.” An express formula that appeals: with nearly a thousand applications, the 2024 edition broke all records.