Henri de Castries

Henri de La Croix de Castries, 5th Comte de Castries (born August 15, 1954 in Bayonne) is a French businessman. As of December 2011^[update] he is Chairman and CEO of AXA^[1][2] since May 2000. His father is probably Christian de Castries, the commander of the doomed French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. In an October 2010 interview with the Singapore Business Times newspaper, he states that his father fought in Indo-China after the Second World War.

Education

• School at Ecole Saint-Jean-de-Passy
• High school at Collège Stanislas in Paris^[3]
• 1976 : Graduated from HEC Paris (same year as Serge Lepeltier and Denis Kessler)
• 1980 : Graduated from ENA (Promotion Voltaire, same one as Dominique de Villepin, *François Hollande and Ségolène Royal)
• law degree

Career

• 1980-1984 : auditing on behalf of the Minister of Finances of France
• 1984 : becomes a member of the French Treasury
• 1986 : participate in the privatisation initiated by the Chirac government
• 1989 : joins the central financial direction of AXA
• 1991 : Appointed general secretary of AXA, in charge of restructurations and mergers (integration of compagnie du Midi)
• 1993 : Appointed general director of AXA
• 1994 : In charge of North America and UK
• 1996 : in charge of the merger and integration with Union des assurances de Paris (UAP)
• 1997 : President of the Board of Equitable (which became AXA Financial)
• 2000 : incumbent : President of the Directorate of AXA
• 2010 : Chairman of the Bilderberg Group's Steering Committee^[4]

Henri de Castries is also an administrator of the Association pour l'Aide aux Jeunes Infirmes (an NGO aiming to support young handicapped people) and is President of AXA Atout Cœur.

References