During preparatory sessions for our Water Panel, we chatted about many things and I found Sabrina to be warm, approachable and possessed of all the skills required to be a respected and effective CEO of Suez. She articulated a strong clear vision, had the right corporate experience from her time at Renault and Siemens, and also brought a fresh perspective. And as Christopher Gasson noted, she boosted moral and crystalised the vision for ‘New Suez’. I disagree with Chris on where the future opportunities for Suez lie. Though there is arguably an element of personal bias in both of our perspectives. I think their future lies in enabling water utilities of the future and a circular economy. Their 5-yr Strategic plan, launched Sep 2022 is solid.
https://lnkd.in/eDg6y2tH.
As fellow panelists, Sabrina and I had the task of outlining to PPI members who manage $25 Trillion of pension assets why they should pay attention to water as an area of opportunity for long term capital growth and value creation.
Meridiam, the majority shareholder, appeared keen for Suez to have more of a water technology focus.
Investors are like the owners of professional football clubs. If things aren’t going right, a few lost games, friction in the board room, the knee-jerk reaction is fire the manager. It feels good at the time, but is rarely a quick fix.
GPT workshopped this with me: What’s the difference between Football Club Managers and Water Company CEOs?
Football managers get sacked when things go down the drain while water company CEOs get sacked when management moves the goalposts.
Ultimately, a key part of the institutional long term value of Suez, is the company culture and the company values, which are strong, built up over many decades and are resilient to changes at the C-suite level. A CEO needs to be able to clearly articulate a vision that resonates and energises people within the company, and also with investors and the market at large. Arguably patrick decker‘s superpower as CEO of Xylem was his singular ability to clearly, and consistently, articulate a strategy for an organisation of that size, and distil it into a message that was clearly understandable to Wall Street and thousands of employees dialing in for Town Hall Meetings.
A long-term strategic plan requires buy-in and commitment and if there is one type of investor that succeeds in water, it’s a patient investor.
Guillaume Stahl Jérôme Bailly SYLVIE BAIG Mathieu Delahaye Nadeem Akram
