Bertrand Dumazy

"I think a CEO is a Chief Energizing Officer. At the end of every meeting, people should walk out with more energy and more willingness to change what can be changed. The CEO is also a serving partner of the company. At Edenred, the only boss is Edenred."

— Bertrand Dumazy

~*~

Overview

Bertrand Dumazy
Born	(1971-07-10) 10 July 1971 Tourcoing, France
Citizenship	French
Education	Lycée Sainte-Geneviève
Alma mater	ESCP Business School; Harvard Business School
Occupation	Business executive
Employer	Edenred
Known for	Transformation of Edenred into a digital payments platform and CAC 40 company
Title	Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Term	2015–present
Predecessor	Jacques Stern
Board member of	Air Liquide; Neoen
Spouse	Françoise
Children	4
Website	https://www.edenred.com

🧑‍💼 Bertrand Dumazy (born 10 July 1971) is a French business executive who has served as chairman and chief executive officer of Edenred, a global provider of employee benefits and payment solutions, since 2015. Under his leadership the group has shifted from a largely paper-based meal-voucher model toward a predominantly digital payments platform, expanded internationally and seen its revenues and market capitalisation increase significantly, developments that contributed to Edenred’s inclusion in the CAC 40 ESG index in 2022 and the main CAC 40 index in 2023. Commentators describe him as the architect of Edenred’s transformation into a technology- and data-driven “platform” business at the intersection of payments, employee benefits and mobility services.

~*~

Early life and education

👶 Origins and education. Bertrand Michel Marie Joseph Dumazy was born in Tourcoing, an industrial city in northern France, as the youngest of six children in a large Catholic family and grew up in a relatively modest environment before leaving as a teenager for the selective Lycée Sainte-Geneviève near Paris, where he undertook preparatory classes for France’s grandes écoles. He then studied at ESCP Business School, graduating in 1994, and subsequently broadened his horizons by earning an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1999, reportedly with distinction, a blend of French elite education and American business training that later shaped his international management style.

🌍 Family influences. Dumazy has cited his father, a former member of French naval aviation who told stories of deployments in Indochina and North Africa, as an early source of curiosity about the wider world and of a taste for travel and discovery. As a youth he was active in the Scouts and, as a teenager, was selected to represent France at a world jamboree in Spain, an experience that highlighted his capacity to lead and motivate peers and foreshadowed the people-focused approach he would later adopt in corporate life.

💼 Consulting and entrepreneurship. After graduating from ESCP, Dumazy began his professional career in 1994 at strategy consultancy Bain & Company, working on assignments in Paris and Milan and contributing to the opening of Bain’s Los Angeles office, before moving in 1999 into private equity as an investment director at BC Partners, where he focused on leveraged buyouts. In that role he was sent to Silicon Valley to help develop an online strategy for Neopost, a French mailroom-equipment firm linked to BC Partners, and exposure to the dot-com boom encouraged him in 2000 to found Constructeo, a Vinci-backed start-up offering an online collaborative platform for construction projects; the venture was acquired within a year by Bricsnet, where he became director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, an intense entrepreneurial episode that he later described as a personal “pivot point” in learning to build and integrate a digital business.

~*~

Corporate career

📨 Neopost and leadership development. After the Bricsnet experience, Dumazy returned to a more traditional corporate environment when he joined Neopost in 2002 as group director of marketing and strategy, bringing with him both consulting skills and start-up experience. Within a few years he rose rapidly: in 2005, at age thirty-four, he became president and chief executive of Neopost France, and by 2008 he was appointed chief financial officer of the Neopost group, an unusual progression from marketing chief to country head and then group CFO that gave him a 360-degree view of management and finance. He has recalled learning at Neopost alongside senior leaders whom he regarded as embodying “true managerial values” and driving profound organisational change, lessons that later informed his own philosophy of transformation.

⚙️ Deutsch and Cromology. Seeking a role with full chief-executive responsibility, Dumazy left Neopost in 2011 to become CEO of the Deutsch Group, a manufacturer of high-performance electrical connectors for harsh environments then owned by investment company Wendel. He guided Deutsch through a transition period that culminated in its acquisition by US conglomerate TE Connectivity in 2012, after which Wendel transferred him to another portfolio company, Materis Paints, where he initially served as executive vice-president before being promoted to CEO. At Materis Paints he oversaw a restructuring and refocusing of the business, including the divestment of other Materis divisions and the rebranding of the paints activity as Cromology in 2015, further building his experience in turning around legacy industrial companies.

💳 Arrival at Edenred. By late 2015, Dumazy’s background spanning consulting, private equity, entrepreneurship and senior roles in marketing, finance and general management made him an attractive candidate to lead a larger listed company. In October 2015 Edenred’s board appointed him chairman and chief executive officer, succeeding Jacques Stern at a turbulent moment for the Paris-based provider of employee benefit vouchers and expense-management solutions: the group had issued a profit warning in August 2015 and seen its share price decline sharply over the summer. Soon after taking office, he completed Edenred’s acquisition of Brazilian corporate payments firm Embratec, then the largest deal in the company’s history, signalling a willingness to make sizeable strategic moves to reposition the group.

🚀 Strategic roadmaps. In 2016, only months into his tenure, Dumazy presented “Fast Forward”, a strategic roadmap aimed at accelerating Edenred’s digital transformation and diversification beyond its core meal-voucher activity, including expansion into corporate travel, fuel cards and other payment solutions, and he also proposed cutting the dividend payout ratio from over 100% of earnings to 80% in order to free up resources for investment. Between 2016 and 2019 Edenred generated organic growth ahead of the plan’s targets and its share price rose from around €15 in late 2015 to the mid-€40s by October 2019, reinforcing market confidence in the strategy. In 2019 he launched a new three-year plan, “Next Frontier”, designed to further diversify revenues, balance Edenred’s geographic footprint and complete the move to fully digital services, followed in 2022 by the “Beyond” plan, which set ambitious objectives to 2025 and beyond, including a medium-term revenue target of around €5 billion supported by strong EBITDA growth and cash generation.

🌐 Platform positioning and CAC 40 status. Under Dumazy’s leadership, Edenred has doubled its workforce from about 6,000 employees in 2015 to roughly 12,000 by 2023 and expanded its user base from around 40 million to some 60 million individuals worldwide, while also growing the number of client companies using its solutions. The group has sought to position itself as a fintech-style “platform” company at the intersection of technology, payments and employee benefits, a shift encapsulated by Dumazy’s remark that Edenred has shown that “a company of French origin, in a historically non-digital business, can completely reinvent itself as a digital platform, hire and grow”. Reflecting this trajectory, Edenred joined the CAC 40 ESG index in 2022 and was promoted to the main CAC 40 index in June 2023, marking its entry into the top tier of French listed corporations and prompting public congratulations from Jacques Borel, inventor of the Ticket Restaurant voucher, on the company’s evolution.

~*~

Financials and wealth

💶 Remuneration. As chief executive of a blue-chip company, Dumazy receives a pay package reflecting both French corporate-governance practices and Edenred’s performance. For the 2023 financial year his fixed salary was set at €1.03 million on a gross annual basis, and he also received an annual bonus of about €1.85 million linked to the achievement of targets for EBITDA, earnings per share and operational objectives. In line with many CAC 40 peers, a significant share of his compensation is delivered in long-term instruments: in early 2024 the board granted him 53,385 performance shares in respect of 2023, representing around 120% of his target annual pay, which will vest only if multi-year performance conditions are met, thereby aligning his interests with those of shareholders.

📈 Shareholding and say on pay. Dumazy’s personal wealth is closely tied to Edenred’s equity, and he holds a substantial portfolio of shares and options whose value has risen alongside the group’s share price, although he does not appear on global billionaire rankings. He periodically sells shares for liquidity or diversification: in June 2023, for example, he disposed of 40,800 Edenred shares at around €61.50 each, realising proceeds of roughly €2.5 million while retaining a significant stake in the company. Advisory shareholder votes on his compensation have generally been supportive but not unanimous; in 2023 approximately 77% of votes cast backed the proposed pay packages for executive directors, a level of approval that is broadly in line with other large French issuers but indicates some investors’ desire for moderation in executive pay.

🏛️ Board and alumni roles. Beyond Edenred, Dumazy holds several external mandates. He has served as an independent director of industrial gases group Air Liquide since 2021 and has been an independent board member of renewable-energy producer Neoen since 2018, where he chairs the nominations and remuneration committee. He also maintains close links with his alma maters: since 2002 he has been involved with the Harvard Business School Club of France, and in 2022 he was elected president of the ESCP Europe alumni association, positions through which he supports mentoring, networking and philanthropic initiatives in business education.

~*~

Personal life and management style

🏠 Family. Despite his high-profile corporate responsibilities, Dumazy is regarded as relatively discreet in his personal life. He is married to his wife Françoise, with whom he has four children, and the family lives in the Paris region, maintaining ties to his native Tourcoing. Colleagues and profiles often characterise him as personable yet highly focused, combining strong analytical discipline with an accessible manner in day-to-day interactions.

🤝 People-centred leadership. A recurring theme in Dumazy’s public comments is the importance he places on recognition and respect within organisations. He has remarked that “no one wakes up in the morning thinking they want to do a bad job”, arguing that leaders should make people feel their contribution matters and that “invisibility” is the enemy of trust in management. At Edenred he is known for setting ambitious objectives while also paying attention to gestures of appreciation, such as personally thanking employees and celebrating collective achievements, an approach credited with helping to mobilise a workforce that doubled in size during the group’s expansion.

⚡ Energizing style and global outlook. Dumazy has described his role as that of a “Chief Energizing Officer”, stating that he wants colleagues to leave meetings “with more energy and willingness to change things” than when they arrived, and he sees himself as a “serving partner” of the enterprise rather than a distant authority figure. He emphasises authenticity as a management credo, insisting that a leader must “say what he will do and do what he says” to avoid uncertainty and enable teams to “spread their wings”, and he promotes what he calls “collective ambition with individual humility” within his executive committee. Fluent in English and comfortable in multicultural environments, he frequently refers to lessons drawn from international assignments and travels, and he remains active in alumni networks and economic forums, such as ESCP events and French economic conferences, reflecting an ongoing interest in ideas and public debate beyond his corporate responsibilities.

~*~

Controversies and challenges

⚖️ Competition authority fine. One of the most notable challenges of Dumazy’s tenure arose in late 2019, when France’s Autorité de la concurrence imposed fines on Edenred and three other meal-voucher issuers for anti-competitive practices that were judged to have restricted competition in the French market between 2010 and 2015. Edenred’s share of the penalties amounted to €157.1 million, a sanction that related to behaviour predating Dumazy’s arrival as chief executive but nonetheless fell to him to manage; the company appealed aspects of the decision while publicly reaffirming its commitment to compliance and tightening internal controls, and observers noted his measured handling of what was effectively a “baptism by fire” early in his leadership of the group.

🦠 Pandemic response. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 posed another significant test for Edenred, as lockdowns and widespread restaurant and office closures disrupted the use of traditional meal vouchers in many countries. Under Dumazy’s direction the company accelerated its shift toward digital and mobile solutions, enabling vouchers to be used for home delivery and takeaway, and pushed further into adjacent areas such as corporate mobility and healthcare benefits, seeking to support clients and partner restaurants while preserving Edenred’s financial resilience. By late 2021 the group had returned to growth, and Dumazy pointed to the episode as evidence that the earlier transformation into a digital platform had strengthened Edenred’s ability to withstand shocks.

🚨 Italian investigation. In February 2024 Italian media reported that prosecutors in Rome had opened an investigation into Edenred’s Italian subsidiary for alleged bid-rigging and fraud in public tenders, focused on whether the company had improperly influenced the awarding of government voucher contracts. Edenred stated that it was cooperating fully with the authorities and conducting its own internal review; while the inquiry remains ongoing, it has raised questions about oversight within the group’s international operations and presents Dumazy with the task of managing potential reputational fallout while ensuring that any misconduct, if confirmed, is remedied at the local level.

🗳️ Governance and remuneration debates. On corporate-governance matters, Dumazy has largely avoided open shareholder revolts, but aspects of Edenred’s executive pay have attracted scrutiny. Advisory “say on pay” resolutions regarding his compensation have typically been approved by around three-quarters of shareholders, a pattern that is broadly consistent with other major French companies yet suggests that a minority of investors favour greater restraint. Proxy advisers have occasionally called on Edenred to provide more detail on long-term incentive metrics and their linkage to performance, though no major public confrontations have resulted, and the company has pointed to its sustained growth and strong returns as justification for the structure of pay packages.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Diversity and gender equality. Dumazy’s stance on diversity and gender equality has also prompted discussion. He frequently emphasises meritocracy and has said that, as the father of four children, he would not want his eldest daughter to feel she obtained a job solely because she is a woman, arguing that performance and contribution should remain central while processes and mindsets evolve to give everyone a fair chance. At the same time, Edenred under his leadership has introduced initiatives to break the “glass ceiling”; over eight years the proportion of women among the group’s top 400 managers rose from about 22% to 38%, and both the executive committee and the board of directors have reached gender parity, outcomes he presents as evidence that diversity and merit-based advancement can be reconciled. Some commentators have nonetheless encouraged Edenred to set more ambitious targets in areas such as women in technology roles and broader ethnic diversity, reflecting the ongoing debate in France around the pace and scope of inclusion policies.

🌱 ESG and CSR agenda. As expectations around environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have intensified, Dumazy has championed Edenred’s “People, Planet, Progress” corporate social responsibility plan, which includes commitments to reduce the group’s carbon footprint and to support sustainable food programmes for beneficiaries of its services. The company has aligned itself with initiatives such as the Science Based Targets for greenhouse-gas reductions and regularly reports on its progress. From a governance perspective, Dumazy has retained a combined chairman–chief executive role, a structure that some governance specialists debate, but Edenred’s board includes a lead independent director and a majority of independent members, features that have so far satisfied most investors concerned about checks and balances at the top of the organisation.

~*~

Legacy and assessment

🧭 Overall profile. Through a career spanning consulting, private equity, entrepreneurship and senior corporate roles, Dumazy has come to be seen in business profiles as a leader who combines the analytical rigour of a strategy consultant with the appetite for calculated risk of an entrepreneur and the diplomatic skills required of a listed-company chief executive. At Edenred he is closely associated with the transformation of a largely national, paper-based voucher issuer into an international, digitally enabled platform that has joined the ranks of France’s flagship companies, while also having to manage regulatory fines, a global pandemic and compliance investigations; observers note that future assessments of his tenure are likely to weigh not only financial performance but also how effectively he sustains Edenred’s values and ESG commitments as the group pursues its “Beyond” ambitions.

~*~