Frédéric Oudéa (born 3 July 1963) is a French businessmann who currently serves as CEO of

Société Générale Société Générale S.A. (), colloquially known in English as SocGen (), is a French-based multinational financial services company founded in 1864, registered in downtown Paris and headquartered nearby in La Défense. Société Générale ...

and as president of the

European Banking Federation The European Banking Federation is a trade association representing national banking associations in countries of the European Union and the European Free Trade Association. It represents over 3500 banks and about 2.6 million employees. It was ...

Early life and education

Oudéa grew up in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. His father Paul was a respected medical professor but died when Frederic was 13. Oudéa reportedly became the man of the family, taking care of his two younger brothers. Though he originally planned to be a surgeon, as his fore-bearers were all doctors, he opted instead to attend the

Lycee Louis-Le-Grand In France, secondary education is in two stages: * ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15. * ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...

to study engineering. He then went to the

École polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

, then to the

École nationale d'administration The École nationale d'administration (generally referred to as ENA, en, National School of Administration) was a French ''grande école'', created in 1945 by President Charles de Gaulle and principal author of the 1958 Constitution Michel Deb ...

. During his stint here, he took time to backpack through

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...

, and

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

, a trip he went on with Stéphane Richard.

Career

Career in the public sector

After his education at

and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, Oudéa worked in the economic sector of the French civil service from 1987 until 1995. His work at this time included working as Technical Adviser in the office of Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of Budget and Communication in 1993. He also worked in a number of other government offices including the audit department of the ministry of finance, the ministry of economy and finance, the budget ministry, and the cabinet of the ministry of treasury and communication. According to one report, the highlight of his career in the service was in 1993 his time with Sarkozy.

Career at Société Générale

Oudéa joined Société Générale in 1995 after being recruited by the then CEO Daniel Bouton and has worked in various positions within the bank since that time, in Paris and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. His first role was as deputy head of the bank's corporate banking division in London, where he later became head. In 1998, he was appointed to head the group's global supervisory arm and was in charge of development of the equities division. He then served as deputy CFO and CFO of the bank from 2002 until May 2008 when he took up his current position of CEO.Quiet man slips into SocGen top job
April 2008, ''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was esta ...

'' In November 2014, Oudéa was elected as the president of the European Banking Federation for a two-year term, effective 1 January 2015, succeeding Christian Clausen, president and CEO of Nordea Bank, who had served two years consecutively in the role. During his first years in office, Oudéa came under pressure from investors and analysts due to the bank's poor performance. In 2019, the bank announced a cost reduction plan, which included cutting 1,600 jobs. That same year, Société Générale shareholders voted to give Oudéa another four-year term. In May 2022, Oudéa announced that he would not be seeking renewal after his term in office comes to an end in 2023.

Other activities

Corporate boards

Sanofi Sanofi S.A. is a French multinational pharmaceutical and healthcare company headquartered in Paris, France. Originally, the corporation was established in 1973 and merged with Synthélabo in 1999 to form Sanofi-Synthélabo. In 2004, Sanofi-Syn ...

, Non-Executive Chair of the Board of Directors (since 2022) *

Capgemini Capgemini SE is a multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company, headquartered in Paris, France. History Capgemini was founded by Serge Kampf in 1967 as an enterprise management and data processing company. The comp ...

, Independent Member of the Board of Directors (since 2018)Board of Directors

Non-profit organizations

Institute of International Finance An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...

(IIF), Chairman of the Steering Committee on Regulatory Capital (since 2010)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oudea, Frederic 1963 births Living people Businesspeople from Paris French chief executives French bankers Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni École Polytechnique alumni École nationale d'administration alumni Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Inspection générale des finances (France)