Maurice Lévy

Maurice Lévy   (businessman)
Born	1942-02-18 Oujda, French protectorate in Morocco
Nationality	French, Moroccan
Alma mater	New Jersey City University
Religion	Jewish
Member of	Council on Foreign Relations/Global Board of Advisors, Justice for Kurds, Le Siècle, Publicis Groupe, WEF/Board of Trustees
Leader of Publicis Groupe,the world's third largest advertising and communications group for 30 years. Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum. Le Siècle. French Association of Private Enterprises. Compagnie financière Edmond de Rothschild. Deutsche Bank.

Maurice Lévy is a French businessman. He was Chairman of the Management Board of Publicis Groupe, the world's third largest advertising and communications group, for 30 years from 1987 to 2017, then from May 2017 until 2021, Chairman of the Supervisory Board.

He is a member of the Le Siècle, a former member of the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum and on the Global Board of Advisors of the Council on Foreign Relations. From February 2010 to June 2012 he was President of the French Association of Private Enterprises (Afep). He is member of the Board of Directors of the bank Compagnie financière Edmond de Rothschild and Deutsche Bank He participated in the 2011 Bilderberg conference.

Background

His father, a professor of philosophy, is forced to flee Francoist Spain after the rebel victory with a death sentence hanging over his head. Then the Lévy couple,of Spanish Jewish origin, has to flee France, threatened by Nazi Germany, and settle in the French colony of Morocco. It was therefore Maurice Lévy was born in Oujda in the east of the country in 1942.

Early Life

A graduate in computer science and organization from the University of New Jersey in 1965, thanks to a scholarship won in a competition organized by Bata shoes, Maurice Lévy was recruited the following year in the IT department of an advertising agency called Synergie. In parallel with his engineering profession, Maurice Lévy discovered a passion for the more commercial aspects of the profession and in the early 1970s , his role extended to managerial and financial functions. At the age of 29, in 1971, his boss chose him as his successor at the head of the group. Declining the offer, he prefers to join another advertiser, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet ,leader of the Publicis Groupe.

Advertising career

As a computer engineer, he took the initiative to archive most of his company 's data on magnetic tape. Thanks to this, it allowed the company to recover in eight days from a devastating fire that occurred on September 28, 1972 in the Publicis building located on Champs-Élysées in Paris. This success helps to get him noticed by management. In 1973, he was promoted to the board of directors, as secretary general. In 1975, he was appointed Deputy Managing Director, and in 1976 Managing Director. And 12 years later, he became Chairman of the Board of Management and succeeds the founder of the group, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, as Chairman and CEO in November 1987.

In January 2008 Maurice Lévy received the International Leadership Award 2008 awarded by the Us Anti-Defamation League. In 2008, Maurice Levy co-organized a concert in Paris on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel.

With the support of the main shareholder, Elisabeth Badinter (born Bleustein-Blanchet), Maurice Levy leads the international development of Publicis Group, making the family business the world's third largest communications and advertising group. In a strategy of sometimes hostile takeovers against his competitors earning him the nickname " Napoleon of advertising" by some Anglo-Saxon media, Maurice Lévy is also pursuing, in the wake of Bleustein-Blanchet, a policy of diversification of media concentrating very early on Internet and new media.

In november 2011, the Supervisory Board of the Publicis group renews for four years all the terms of office of the five members of the management board including Maurice Lévy, chairman of the management board and CEO, and of Jean-Yves Naouri [ 9 ] , deputy managing director and executive chairman of Publicis Worldwide .

He receives the support of politicians such as François Baroin designating him as an “immense captain of industry who developed a French group . " Elisabeth Badinter , Chair of the Publicis supervisory board, also supports Maurice Levy [ 11 ] .

Publicis achieved a turnover of 9.6 billion euros in 2015, which enabled it to generate a net profit of 901 million euros.

On March 25, 2021, after 50 years of career at Publicis, Maurice Lévy announces that he will end his mandate on May 26, 2021. He was succeeded as CEO by Arthur Sadoun.

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/2011	9 June 2011	12 June 2011	Switzerland Hotel Suvretta St. Moritz	59th meeting, in Switzerland, 129 guests
WEF/Annual Meeting/2004	21 January 2004	25 January 2004	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2068 billionaires, CEOs and their politicians and "civil society" leaders met under the slogan Partnering for Prosperity and Security. "We have the people who matter," said World Economic Forum Co-Chief Executive Officer José María Figueres.
WEF/Annual Meeting/2006	25 January 2006	29 January 2006	Switzerland	Both former US president Bill Clinton and Bill Gates pushed for public-private partnerships. Only a few of the over 2000 participants are known.
WEF/Annual Meeting/2007	24 January 2007	28 January 2007	Switzerland	Only the 449 public figures listed of ~2200 participants
WEF/Annual Meeting/2009	23 January 2009	27 January 2009	World Economic Forum Switzerland	Chairman Klaus Schwab outlined five objectives driving the Forum’s efforts to shape the global agenda, including letting the banks that caused the 2008 economic crisis keep writing the rules, the climate change agenda, over-national government structures, taking control over businesses with the stakeholder agenda, and a "new charter for the global economic order".
WEF/Annual Meeting/2011	26 January 2011	30 January 2011	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2229 guests in Davos, with the theme: "Shared Norms for the New Reality".
WEF/Annual Meeting/2012	25 January 2012	29 January 2012	Switzerland	2113 guests in Davos
WEF/Annual Meeting/2013	23 January 2013	27 January 2013	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2500 mostly unelected leaders met to discuss "leading through adversity"
WEF/Annual Meeting/2014	22 January 2014	25 January 2014	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2604 guests in Davos considered "Reshaping The World"
WEF/Annual Meeting/2016	20 January 2016	23 January 2016	World Economic Forum Switzerland	Attended by over 2500 people, both leaders and followers, who were explained how the Fourth Industrial Revolution would changed everything, including being a "revolution of values".
WEF/Annual Meeting/2017	17 January 2017	20 January 2017	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2950 known participants, including prominently Bill Gates. "Offers a platform for the most effective and engaged leaders to achieve common goals for greater societal leadership."
WEF/Annual Meeting/2019	22 January 2019	25 January 2019	World Economic Forum Switzerland	"The reality is that we are in a Cold War [against China] that threatens to turn into a hot one."
WEF/Annual Meeting/2020	21 January 2020	24 January 2020	World Economic Forum Switzerland	This mega-summit of the world's ruling class and their political and media appendages happens every year, but 2020 was special, as the continuous corporate media coverage of COVID-19 started more or less from one day to the next on 20/21 January 2020, coinciding with the start of the meeting.
WEF/Annual Meeting/2022	22 May 2022	26 May 2022	World Economic Forum Switzerland	1912 guests in Davos

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