Benoît Coquart

"I personally believe diversity makes the company more high-performing. When I ask employees why they joined us, they rarely answer salary or the job; they often say they like the way we work on gender issues, LGBT+ inclusion and reducing our carbon footprint. These are critical points for attracting and retaining talent, so we must not ease up on diversity, quite the opposite."

— Benoît Coquart

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Overview

Benoît Coquart
Born	1973 (age 52–53)
Citizenship	France
Education	Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris; ESSEC Business School
Alma mater	Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris; ESSEC Business School
Occupation	Business executive
Employer	Legrand
Known for	Chief executive officer of Legrand and leading its digital and sustainability strategy
Title	Chief executive officer of Legrand
Term	2018–present
Predecessor	Gilles Schnepp
Board member of	Legrand (executive director); IGNES (president); FIEEC (vice-president)
Awards	Smart Boss award (2015); Allied Leaders recognition for LGBT+ inclusion (2019)

👤 Benoît Coquart (born November 1973) is a French business executive who has served as chief executive officer (CEO) of Legrand, a global manufacturer of electrical and digital building infrastructure, since 2018. He joined the group in 1997 and has spent his entire career at Legrand in roles spanning international development, investor relations, mergers and acquisitions, corporate strategy and country management before being appointed to the executive committee in 2010 and promoted to CEO at the age of 44. His tenure has been characterised by a focus on innovation and bolt-on acquisitions, digital transformation of the product portfolio and production base, and an emphasis on energy-efficiency solutions and diversity and inclusion within the company.

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Early life and education

🎓 Education and upbringing. Coquart was born in November 1973 and grew up in France, where he pursued an elite academic track combining political science and business. He graduated from the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) in 1994 and obtained a business degree from ESSEC Business School in 1995, a dual background that later underpinned his interest in both public policy and corporate strategy.

🌏 Early expatriate experience. Rather than pursuing a conventional Paris-based corporate or public-sector career, Coquart sought international exposure and accepted a short-term cooperative placement in Seoul in the mid-1990s. In 1997, at the age of 23, he was hired by Legrand to open the company’s first office in South Korea, effectively launching its local operations from scratch. He later recalled that he accepted the opportunity quickly because it combined a company he admired with the chance to discover new horizons, while also acknowledging the loneliness and lack of established framework that marked his first months as an expatriate. This formative experience gave him a rapid immersion in autonomy, cross-cultural negotiation and practical business building that would shape his later leadership style.

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Career

💼 Entry into Legrand. Coquart’s initial assignment in South Korea laid the foundations for a long career within Legrand. After two years in Asia, he returned to France and rotated through a series of roles in marketing, finance and other corporate functions, gaining a broad view of the group’s activities. He has credited mentors and Legrand’s culture of internal development for helping young recruits progress, describing a company that engages junior staff and supports them as they grow into broader responsibilities.

📊 Investor relations and strategy roles. Building on this early operational grounding, Coquart was recalled to the Limoges headquarters to take charge of investor relations before moving into corporate development, where he oversaw mergers and acquisitions, and then into the role of director of strategy and development. In these positions he played a key part in Legrand’s expansion into new geographic markets and product segments. In 2010, at the age of 36, he joined the executive committee, confirming his status as one of the group’s leading younger executives and positioning him in the succession pipeline for top management.

🌪️ Crisis management in 2008–2009. A decisive moment in Coquart’s rise came during the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. Only a few months earlier he had been put in charge of acquisitions, a growth mandate that was quickly put on hold when markets collapsed. Instead of withdrawing, he was asked by then-CEO Gilles Schnepp to design and implement a cost-saving plan to guide Legrand through the downturn. Coquart helped deliver a belt-tightening programme that preserved the group’s financial health “without too much breakage”, and later argued that periods of turbulence reveal the real potential of senior managers, because they force leaders to make hard choices while keeping organisations mobilised.

🏭 Country management and digital turn. As conditions improved, Coquart resumed work on external growth and then, in 2015, was appointed director of Legrand France, taking responsibility for one of the group’s largest business units in its home market. He emerged as a central figure in Legrand’s digital transformation, notably by advocating greater digitisation of production lines and by promoting connected products and services. Under his influence the company broadened its portfolio beyond traditional electrical fittings to include assisted-living and smart-care solutions such as those developed by Tynetec and later grouped under the Legrand Care brand, as well as smart-home devices following the acquisition of French start-up Netatmo.

🧑‍💼 Appointment as chief executive officer. In February 2018 Coquart was appointed CEO of Legrand at the age of 44, succeeding long-time chief executive and chairman Gilles Schnepp, who became non-executive chair. The transition, carried out in line with Legrand’s tradition of internal promotion, was noted for its continuity: senior management did not depart en masse, and the new CEO initially worked in tandem with his predecessor before governance was simplified with the arrival of an independent chair, Angeles Garcia-Poveda, in 2020. Coquart reorganised the group’s front-office structure, reducing the number of geographical zones from five to three to streamline decision-making, and refreshed the executive committee so that, within about a year, a majority of its members had changed compared with the previous era, balancing continuity with “fresh blood” and new competencies.

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Strategy and leadership

🚀 Growth model and acquisitions. As CEO, Coquart has repeatedly described Legrand’s growth model as resting on two pillars: sustained innovation and a disciplined programme of external growth. The group invests a significant share of its revenue in research and development to refresh its product range and develop connected solutions, while pursuing a steady stream of bolt-on acquisitions that broaden its technological capabilities or geographic presence. In 2022 alone Legrand completed several acquisitions despite macroeconomic uncertainty, and Coquart indicated that management monitors a list of hundreds of potential targets, signalling that opportunistic but selective deal-making remains central to his strategy.

🧩 Operating model and organisation. Internally, Coquart has focused on simplifying structures and clarifying responsibilities in order to accelerate execution. The reduction in the number of geographical zones was intended to cut bureaucracy and bring management closer to customers, while the reshaped executive committee blended long-serving Legrand managers, whose average tenure at the group is around two decades, with new recruits brought in to add skills in areas such as corporate social responsibility and digital technologies. He has argued that a strong culture of internal promotion is compatible with targeted recruitment of external specialists when needed.

📈 Financial performance. Under Coquart’s leadership, Legrand has delivered robust financial results despite successive crises. Between 2017 and 2022 annual revenue rose from around €5 billion to just over €8 billion, while operating margins remained close to 20 percent, a level broadly consistent with the group’s performance over the previous decade and a half. By 2024 Legrand reported record sales of about €8.6 billion and continued to generate high profitability, and by 2025 its market capitalisation was around €33 billion, roughly double the level reached a decade earlier, placing the company among the more highly valued European industrial groups of comparable size.

🌱 Energy efficiency and climate strategy. A central theme of the Coquart era has been positioning Legrand as a supplier of solutions to environmental and energy-efficiency challenges. He frequently highlights the fact that buildings account for a large share of global carbon dioxide emissions and argues that Legrand’s catalogue, from smart lighting controls to energy-management systems for data centres and electric-vehicle charging infrastructure, can contribute to reducing that footprint. Under his leadership products linked to energy efficiency and sustainable buildings have grown to represent a significant portion of revenue, and the group has maintained relatively high R&D spending even in difficult years in order to support this shift. Legrand has also set targets to cut its own operational emissions and to reduce emissions along its supply chain in line with international climate goals.

🤝 Leadership philosophy. Coquart has articulated a leadership approach that combines strategic direction with people development and hands-on involvement in key issues. He has described the CEO’s role as comprising three main missions: defining a clear course, putting the right people in the right positions and recruiting individuals who may be “better than oneself”, and being present in a wide range of operational questions where arbitration or guidance is needed. Drawing on his political science studies, he has compared corporate decision-making with governmental processes, emphasising that he does not see himself as a solitary decision-maker but as the head of a collective process that nonetheless requires swift and well-implemented decisions once a choice is made. He is also known for insisting that employees be offered challenges and opportunities for advancement as a way of keeping the organisation engaged and meritocratic.

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Financials and wealth

💶 Remuneration structure. As the chief executive of a large listed industrial group, Coquart receives a multi-component remuneration package that places him among the better-paid corporate leaders in France, though not at the very top of the scale. Public disclosures and investor analyses indicate that his total annual compensation in recent years has typically been in the range of €3.5 million to €4 million, of which roughly a quarter corresponds to fixed salary and the remainder to annual bonuses and long-term share-based incentives linked to performance criteria. During the COVID-19 crisis he voluntarily reduced his own pay, and later observed that he remained “well paid” even after the cut, presenting the gesture as a contribution to the collective effort requested of employees and shareholders.

📊 Shareholding and alignment. Over the course of his career at Legrand, Coquart has accumulated a personal shareholding in the company that represents a small percentage of the capital but a significant portion of his wealth. Analyses of management ownership report that he holds on the order of 0.05 percent of the group’s shares, a stake worth tens of millions of euros at recent market prices, which is designed to align his financial interests with those of long-term investors. In addition to his executive functions he became a member of Legrand’s board of directors in 2020, underscoring his dual role as both chief executive and executive director.

🏛️ Industry representation roles. Outside Legrand, Coquart devotes most of his external mandates to professional and industry bodies rather than to other corporate boards. Since 2018 he has served as president of IGNES, an alliance that brings together companies in the French electrical and digital building sectors, and he has been vice-president of the federation of electrical, electronics and communication industries (FIEEC) since 2017. These roles involve promoting shared interests in areas such as technical standards, innovation policy and the energy transition on behalf of member companies.

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Personal life

🏠 Life in Limoges. Unlike many French corporate leaders who base themselves in Paris, Coquart has chosen to live in Limoges, the provincial city where Legrand is headquartered. He has presented this choice as emblematic of what he sees as a new generation of leaders who are less focused on proximity to political power and elite social circles and more attentive to employees and customers. He spends a substantial portion of his time travelling to visit Legrand sites and clients around the world but values the relative normality of life in Limoges with his family; he is married and has children, although he keeps details of his private life out of the public eye.

📚 Interests and decision-making style. Coquart is known as an avid reader with a lasting interest in the political sciences he studied at Sciences Po. He has cited works analysing how ministers and presidents make decisions as a source of inspiration for thinking about collective decision-making in corporations, arguing that even at the top of a company choices are the result of team work rather than the intuition of a single individual. In interviews he has stressed that once decisions are taken at Legrand they are implemented quickly and effectively, with limited internal politics or obstruction, and that his role is to ensure both the quality and the speed of these decisions.

🧑‍⚕️ Response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a practical demonstration of Coquart’s crisis-management approach. During lockdowns he and the chief financial officer continued to work on-site at Legrand’s headquarters to monitor operations and cash-flow, and the group avoided resorting to government aid in its main markets. Management decided to cancel a planned increase in the dividend in order to preserve financial flexibility and signal prudence, while also implementing temporary cost-saving measures and leadership pay cuts. Coquart presented these decisions as a way of sharing the burden between shareholders, managers and employees while keeping the company on a sound footing for the recovery.

🎗️ Philanthropy and social engagement. Beyond core business decisions, Coquart has supported initiatives with a social and societal focus. Under his leadership Legrand launched a solidarity fund dedicated in particular to supporting staff in nursing homes and hospitals for elderly people, an initiative that reflected the pressures faced by healthcare workers during the pandemic. He has been recognised with distinctions such as a “Smart Boss” award for his role in driving the group’s digital transformation and an “Allied Leaders” recognition for promoting LGBT+ inclusion, and he has signed charters against discrimination and in favour of diversity. Coquart has argued that companies with more diverse teams are stronger and that many young recruits choose Legrand because of its stance on gender equality, LGBT+ issues and environmental responsibility.

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Controversies and challenges

⚖️ Governance and executive pay debates. Although Coquart has largely avoided personal scandal, aspects of Legrand’s governance and executive pay under his tenure have attracted scrutiny. When the company separated the roles of CEO and chair, replacing the combined CEO-chairman position held by Schnepp with a non-executive chair alongside Coquart as CEO, observers noted that the combined fixed remuneration of the two top officers was higher than that of the previous single office-holder, against a backdrop of sharply rising pay for large-company leaders in France more generally. However shareholder meetings have continued to approve Legrand’s executive compensation policies and individual packages, and analyses by proxy advisers and financial firms have generally described Coquart’s pay as broadly aligned with performance and in line with peers, particularly in light of the voluntary pay adjustments during the pandemic.

🌐 Trade tensions and supply-chain disruptions. External shocks such as trade disputes and supply-chain disruptions have posed major challenges for Legrand during Coquart’s time as CEO. In 2025 the company outlined an action plan to offset up to US$200 million a year in potential tariff-related costs arising from trade tensions between the United States and China, combining price increases, adjustments to sourcing and production footprints, and selective freezes on discretionary spending. Coquart indicated that Legrand would favour measures such as natural attrition and efficiency gains over large-scale layoffs and that the group was accelerating its diversification of manufacturing towards countries such as Vietnam, India and Mexico in order to reduce exposure to tariff risk while maintaining service levels to customers.

🏭 Environmental and tax-justice scrutiny. On the environmental, social and governance front, Legrand’s strategy under Coquart has generally been viewed positively by investors because of its focus on energy-efficient products and emissions-reduction targets, but it has also been the subject of critical analysis by NGOs and researchers. The Observatoire des multinationales, for example, has examined the group’s global footprint and highlighted that a non-negligible share of its legal entities are located in jurisdictions considered fiscally or financially opaque, while acknowledging the company’s progress on climate commitments and internal energy-saving measures. Such assessments contribute to ongoing debates about the responsibilities of industrial groups in relation to climate policy and tax practices.

🌈 Diversity, inclusion and cultural politics. Coquart’s outspoken support for diversity and inclusion, particularly in areas such as gender equality and LGBT+ rights, has largely been welcomed in Europe but carries potential risks in more polarised political environments. He has warned against complacency in the face of backlash against diversity programmes in some countries and has argued that companies should not “ease up” on these efforts, contending instead that they contribute to corporate performance and attractiveness to talent. Under his leadership Legrand has implemented initiatives to increase the representation of women in management and has communicated publicly about its inclusion policies, which he says are increasingly cited by young candidates as reasons for joining the company.

🧭 Succession and continuity questions. A recurring question for analysts of Legrand is whether a succession model based almost exclusively on internal promotion might risk strategic complacency. The company has had a small number of CEOs over several decades, all of whom were long-serving managers before their appointment. Coquart has responded that the depth of internal experience is a strength rather than a weakness and that his own efforts to renew the executive committee and bring in external specialists where appropriate show that continuity and openness to change can coexist. He has pointed to the group’s sustained growth, high employee engagement and low turnover in senior leadership as indicators that this balance is working.

🌊 Assessment of crisis leadership. In his own assessments of leadership, Coquart has argued that the true test of a chief executive comes during turbulent periods rather than in times of calm expansion. His record at Legrand has been shaped by successive crises – the global financial crisis, trade tensions, the COVID-19 pandemic, raw-material shocks and geopolitical instability – during which the group has preserved high profitability and continued to invest in strategic priorities such as digitalisation and energy-efficiency solutions. Supporters argue that this combination of resilience and forward investment demonstrates the value of his measured, analytical style, while critics continue to watch whether the company can maintain its performance in the face of evolving technological and regulatory challenges.

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