With the exception of the appointment of Michel-Alain Proch as a member of the Management Board from January 15, 2021, replacing Jean-Michel Etienne, whose term of office expired on December 31, 2020, no changes are expected in the composition of the Management Board for 2021.
Michel-Alain Proch has taken over the duties of Groupe Chief Financial Officer since the closing and presentation of the financial statements for the 2020 financial year. Jean-Michel Etienne will remain with the Groupe until the summer of 2021 as Special Advisor to the Chairman of the Management Board and will oversee the Groupe’s shared services.
To the best of the Company’s knowledge, over the past five years:
The Supervisory Board has strict internal rules in the area of conflicts of interest: the principle is that members of the Supervisory Board must be able to exercise their role in a completely independent manner, vis-à-vis each other and vis-à-vis the Management Board, and that each member undertakes, as soon as he or she learns of it, to inform the Supervisory Board of any conflict of interest, whether actual or potential. In the event of any such conflict of interest, the interested member refrains from discussing, or voting on, the decision on the subject in question.
As far as the Company is aware, the only family ties between the Company’s corporate officers are those between Élisabeth Badinter – daughter of Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, Publicis Groupe founder – her son Simon Badinter and her niece Sophie Dulac.
Apart from the information indicated, to the Company’s knowledge, there are no family links or potential conflicts between the interest of members of the Supervisory Board or of the Management Board of the Company and their duties towards the Company.
Moreover, there is no undertaking or agreement by the Company or its subsidiaries with members of the Company’s Supervisory Board or Management Board providing for benefits to be paid upon termination of their roles, nor any other agreement between the Company, its subsidiaries and these persons, other than those described in Sections 3.2 and 3.3. Except as may be described otherwise in Section 3.3, no appointment as member of the Supervisory Board or the Management Board has been made pursuant to an undertaking made to a major shareholder, client or a supplier of the Company.
The Management Board is assisted by the Management Committee, which is responsible for the Groupe’s operations and the execution of its strategy.
As of December 31, 2020, it was composed of the members of the Management Board and:
Publicis Groupe is committed to respecting gender equality and has been involved for many years in promoting women’s rights in civil society and in the workplace (see Section 4.1.2 “Diversity and Inclusion”).
Publicis Groupe ensures a balanced representation of women and men up to the highest levels of responsibility. There has been balanced gender representation on the Supervisory Board since well before it became a legal requirement, making Publicis Groupe SA one of the first groups to apply gender parity to its Board.
