November 24, 2021, Stéphane Richard, boss of Orange, is sentenced by the Paris Court of Appeal for complicity in the embezzlement of public funds in the controversial arbitration case between Crédit Lyonnais and Bernard Tapie. The CEO since 2011 of the incumbent operator is forced to let go of orders in the wake of the verdict “unfair and incomprehensible” according to him.
Words are harsh, he reacted at the time. He is surprised at the sentence given in view of the charge, “I would point out, however, that in relation to the severity of these accusations, the sentence imposed on a one-year suspended prison sentence seems, I was going to say, surprisingly low. A one-year suspended prison sentence. Basically, it is what you get when you drive very fast on the highway”, says Stéphane Richard.
Since June 1st. Stéphane Richard is one of 57 partners at Perella Weinberg, an American investment bank. He works in the Paris office and this is a change for someone who has been a business manager almost continuously since 1994, with a parenthesis at Bercy between 2007 and 2009.
He confesses that his life has “radically changed” since he left Orange on May 19 at the general meeting: “I went from a life where I was the boss of a big organization, big company, with an extremely heavy, constrained agenda, a lot of formalism, a lot of meetings to a job that is more like a profession liberal. The firm for which I officiate now, it is 600 people in the world and Orange 150,000 employees. And therefore, me who was in the position of the boss whom the whole world came to ‘today I am in the other position’, says Stephane Richard.
He says he stayed “deeply attached to Orange, to its employees who, moreover, speak to me, write to me, ask me from time to time. And that makes me very happy. There is always this unbreakable bond. Which is brutal and unfair, it is the fact of having linked this departure to this affair of the Tapie arbitration, which remains for me a deep wound. I lived eight years of this procedure in all its stages. It was a kind of sword of Damocles above my head for all these years. It was very difficult to bear and to live. I filed an appeal in cassation. Now it is like that. As I told you, I am I turned the page. I devote myself to this new job, this new activity, while keeping a big place in my heart for Orange”, comments Stéphane Richard.
With regard to this appeal in cassation, “we can expect a decision from the Court of Cassation around mid-2023”, he assures. An important procedure for him because he would like his “final innocence be recognized.” A question of how he looks at himself, explains Stéphane Richard: “On the institutions of my country, on the justice of my country. But besides, would I go after this cassation? I am not completely sure today.”
“What I am most proud of is first of all, I believe, to have repaired a company a little. When I arrived, there was a majority of employees who hid the fact that they worked for France Telecom at the time. So the fact of having, it’s not just me, but in any case of having contributed to restoring this pride of belonging and overall, I would say the social and human ties to the inside the company, it’s a source of great pride”, notes Stéphane Richard.
Regrets ? “Naturally, I have. I didn’t manage to make the big strategic move that would have completely changed the situation for Orange. It could be a merger with one of our great European colleagues, the Germans, the English for example. I tried discreetly on several occasions, but I don’t think the conditions were right. I think Orange could have been behind the creation of a real major pan-European operator in our sector. I think that would have been good for Europe and for France, but I didn’t succeed. I know I tried, I don’t think I was the cause of the failure, but in any case, I I didn’t make it”, admits Stéphane Richard.
Stéphane Richard followed the first steps of his successor, Chrystelle Heydemann, from a distance, without commenting on them. If the company wants to call on him again for his expertise, his door will always be open and his phone too, he says. But he repeats it, he has turned the page.