France's Top Female CEO Becomes a Stranded Asset
The downfall of Engie’s Isabelle Kocher shows how hard it is to make the green transition. But politics and personality played a big part too in her ousting.
Ousted by the state.
Photographer: ERIC PIERMONT/AFPWanted: Knowledgeable and experienced CEO, preferably female, to take over the running of a $42 billion utility from a knowledgeable and experienced CEO, also female. No strategic shift necessary — the last CEO got things broadly right. Close ties with Emmanuel Macron a plus.
That may well be the kind of job ad France’s Engie SA has in mind as it begins the search for a candidate to replace Isabelle Kocher, the only female chief executive officer in the CAC 40 blue-chip index. Her firing, barely four years into the job, says a lot about the consequences of trying to turn a fossil fuel-dependent energy utility into a greener, pro-renewables ally of sustainable, inclusive capitalism. Kocher’s strategy was broadly on target, but she ended up paying the price for the political, governance and financial problems that ensued. It’s a warning for her successor, and the industry.