Frédéric Oudéa

Frédéric Oudéa   (financier)
Born	3 July 1963 Paris, France
Nationality	French
Alma mater	Lycée Louis-le-Grand, École Polytechnique, École nationale d'administration
Spouse	Amélie Oudéa-Castéra
Member of	Institute of International Finance
French financier  Société Générale/CEO In office May 2009 - Present  European Banking Federation/President In office 1 January 2015 - 1 January 2017

Frédéric Oudéa is a French banker. As finance inspector, he was one of Nicolas Sarkozy's advisors during his time at the Budget Ministry. He was recruited by the bank Société Générale in 1995. After the Kerviel affair, which hit the bank in January 2008, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer. Oudéa assumed the position of CEO in May 2009. In May 2015, he left the presidency of the group to devote himself to the general management of Société Générale, leaving the presidency to Lorenzo Bini Smaghi.

Background

Frédéric Oudéa is the son of a renowned gastroenterologist of Hungarian origin (just like Sarkozy), living in Nantes, who died in 1976. His mother, a researcher, moved to Paris with her three children. Frédéric Oudéa obtained his baccalaureate at the age of 16 before entering preparatory classes at Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He continued his studies at the École polytechnique (class of 1981) and at the École nationale d'administration (class of 1987).

Ministry of Budget

As Inspector of finance, he followed his superior Pierre Mariani and in 1993 joined the office of Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of Budget and Communication . Oudéa was technical advisor in charge of social, European and agricultural affairs .

Societe Generale

In 1995, Frédéric Oudéa was recruited by Société Générale. After having held various positions in London and at the bank's French headquarters, he was appointed Chief Financial Officer in 2003. He was mentioned as one of Daniel Bouton's potential successors. During the Kerviel affair, its teams prepared the capital increase to bail out the bank. General management of the group was entrusted to him in May 2008, while Daniel Bouton retained the position of chairman of the board of directors.

In March 2009, Frédéric Oudéa was one of the leaders to whom the board of directors granted a batch of stock options (150,000 shares at 24.45 euros), while the bank was aided by the state. The publicity made to this plan, at the time when in the United States the AIG affair became a scandal, pushed them to give up this profitable bonus. At the end of April 2009, Daniel Bouton announced that he was resigning from his position on the board of directors. The following month, Frédéric Oudéa was appointed Chairman and CEO.

In May 2015, he resumed the function of general manager following the dissociation of the functions of chairman of the board and general manager of the bank.

On September 1, 2015, he became president of the French Banking Federation (FBF) for one year, when he was to be replaced by Philippe Brassac, managing director of Crédit Agricole.

In 2016, Société Générale was the main French bank affected by the Panama Papers scandal. Communist Party deputy Marie-George Buffet then demanded the resignation of Frédéric Oudéa, suspected of having given false testimony to the Senate about offshore companies created by the bank, and demanded legal action . PCF senator Éric Bocquet announced that he was going to alert he office of the Senate with a view to prosecuting Frédéric Oudéa for false testimony, about statements made under oath during a hearing in the Senate . On May 27, the office of the Senate allowed Frédéric Oudéa to avoid going to court, to the great astonishment of the communist group which had requested the office to do so.

Other positions

On July 10, 2019, the French Banking Federation announced that Frédéric Oudéa would take over the chairmanship of the organization on September 1, 2019. He thus succeeded Laurent Mignon, chairman of the management board of BPCE. In September 2020, Frédéric Oudéa was replaced at the head of the FBF by Philippe Brassac .

On December 7, 2021, he was appointed Chairman of the École Polytechnique Foundation, succeeding Denis Ranque on January 1, 2022.

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/2009	14 May 2009	17 May 2009	Greece Vouliagmeni	The 57th Bilderberg
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/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.

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