Martin Bouygues

Martin Bouygues, born 1952,^[1] is chairman and chief executive officer of the French company Bouygues; founded by his father Francis Bouygues in 1952. In 2006 he was listed at the worlds 214th richest person, and a billionaire.^[2]

Starting off

He joined the Bouygues group in 1974 as works supervisor, before holding positions in sales management. In 1978, he founded Maison Bouygues, a catalogue real estate business. In 1982, he was appointed director of Bouygues’ Board of Directors. In 1984, the Bouygues group and Maison Bouygues acquired SAUR, a French water treatment and distribution company. In 1989, he became Chairman and CEO of Maison Bouygues. In 1987, he was appointed Vice-Chairman of the Board.

Whereas everyone expected it to be the eldest son, Nicolas Bouygues, an engineer graduated from École Centrale Paris (as were the father, Francis Bouygues and grandfather, Georges Bouygues), Martin, despite having only an undergraduate diploma, was appointed Chairman and CEO on 5 September 1989. In fact, his elder brother had been unable to get along with his father to become Chairman and CEO.

Management

In the 1990s, with Martin Bouygues at the helm, the Group expanded into two sectors: construction — especially at the international level — and Telecoms/media (Bouygues Telecom, TF1, LCI).

He also made a number of key management decisions, such as rejecting the initial bidding conditions for awarding a UMTS licence in France in 2001 and the cooperation agreement with Alstom, in 2006.

Since 2010 he has been a member of the Skolkovo Foundation Council.

References

External links

• "Creative construction: How the Bouygues brothers worked from within to gain control of one of France's best-known groups", www.economist.com (The Economist), 30 November 2006